Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
Marines in CBRN kit on Exercise Toxic Dagger
40 Commando Royal Marines and The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) have staged the UK’s biggest annual exercise to prepare troops for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) operations. Exercise TOXIC DAGGER is supported by Dstl, along with Public Health England (PHE) and The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), and is the largest exercise of its kind in the country.

Specialists in CBRN from Dstl and AWE are able to create realistic exercise scenarios based on the latest threat information. Completing the training and exercising against these scenarios provides a challenging programme for the Royal Marines to demonstrate their proficiency in the methods to detect, assess and mitigate a CBRN threat.

The three-week programme included Company-level attacks and scenarios concerning CBRN vignettes, concluding with a full-scale exercise involving government and industry scientists and more than 300 military personnel.

Major Rob Garside, from 40 Commando Royal Marines, said:

Working with Dstl means we have the most up-to-date information and a realistic exercise. This ensures we are well prepared for a CBRN operating environment. It is vital we can make rapid decisions and are able to protect and support specialists who come in to deal with any incident. On operations these specialists are on hand to advise and we must ensure we already have a strong understanding of their capabilities and what they require of us as a military force.

The Dstl lead for CBRN exercises said:

40 Commando would be first on the ground in the event of a CBRN incident. We ensure they’re up to date on the latest threats and make the exercise truly realistic. They not only have to provide a fighting force in an unstable environment, they must also be able to assess the scene and know what they’re dealing with.

That’s where Dstl, PHE, AWE and the Defence CBRN Centre come in, as we provide the technical information the Marines require.

The media made public a presentation of 6 slides, shown at a closed briefing at the British Embassy in Moscow, dedicated to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal. Kommersant reports the presentation was held on March 22 for foreign ambassadors, after which 25 c

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

'...The situation is indeed unusual. There is an urgent need for a non-politicised and highly professional discussion of the Skripals’ poisoning case. We have distributed a position paper. We ask you to bring it to the notice of your governments.

The language of this position paper, just as any other such paper, is dry legalese with technical details.

It would be wrong to invite you here just to say this. I propose that we hold an open discussion in this closed diplomatic group.

Let us look at hard facts, beginning with the humanitarian aspects of the case at hand.

On March 4, 2018, two people, one of them Russian citizen Yulia Skripal, were attacked in Salisbury, a flourishing city in the south of England.

Various versions of the circumstances of this tragedy have been voiced in the UK. They highlight the use of chemical agents, which the British call Novichok, for some reason. All of these versions do not stand up to any criticism.

In this situation, UK officials have laid the blame on Russia hastily, hysterically and without presenting any evidence, and demanded explanations from us.

I would like to repeat that it was a Russian citizen who has been attacked in the UK. Logic suggests two possible variants. Either the British authorities are unable to ensure protection against such terrorist attacks on their territory, or they were directly or indirectly involved in the preparation of this attack on a Russian citizen. There is no other alternative.

We are surprised, to put it mildly, that the British authorities had denied even consular access to the Russian citizen who has been attacked contrary to the elementary norms of civilised interstate relations. They are prevaricating, but at the same time they distribute video footage from the hospital where the Skripals are allegedly being treated. But this only raises more questions.

The British have refused to share the information obtained by their investigators and have not replied to the Russian requests regarding Yulia Skripal. We have no reliable information about what happened to this Russian citizen over the past two weeks and why this happened to her. This is hard to comprehend: these events are unfolding in the 21st century in a country that is considered civilised.

Naturally, demanding any explanations from Russia in this situation is simply absurd. Russia does not owe anything to anyone in this context, and it cannot be held accountable for the activities or inactivity of the British authorities in their national territory.

We see that the British authorities are becoming increasingly nervous, which is logical. The clock is ticking. They have driven themselves into a corner. Ultimately, they will have to answer a growing number of questions, but they have no answers.

The inference that they have made a mess of things but Russia is responsible anyway and must be held accountable is the wrong kind of logic. This logic may be good for a British or US movie, but it does not work in real life, especially in relations with Russia.....'

As usual, Russian Diplomacy making their Western counterparts look like the buffoons they really are._________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

‘Evil’ Vladimir Putin suddenly gets the bright idea to get rid of a Russian former MI6 double agent who was pardoned by the Russian state and involved in a Russia-West spy swap deal.

He tells his FSB henchmen to use a generic form of nerve gas associated with Russia. He is aware that assassinating Sergei Skripal would upset future agreements relating to spy exchanges, because of the convention that those who form part of such transactions are not made subject to retributive measures.

Putin carries out the death sentence before an impending presidential election in Russia and only months away from the Russian-hosted World Cup Football tournament.

He also accepts that his execution order will justify the propagation of anti-Russian sentiment and perhaps eat away at the goodwill that Russia has generated globally by its actions in aiding the destruction of the fanatical Islamist militias let loose in Syria by the Western powers and their Middle Eastern allies.

Putin acknowledges all of this and accepts that he will be labelled as a ‘new Hitler’.

He might even have anticipated that Western ‘journals of record’ and bastions of ‘impartial’ reportage, some charged with the awesome responsibility for ‘speaking truth and peace to other nations’, would fail to ask the simple, yet tried and tested question in the aftermath of a crime:

Cui Bono?

This article was originally published on Adeyinka Makinde’s blog.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He can be followed on Twitter @AdeyinkaMakinde

Weedkiller: There is a reason groundspeople wear protective clothing when they’re spraying this stuff around.

There may be a chorus of outrage over the question in the headline – but it seems to be time to ask it.

The police officer who was affected by the same poison as the Skripals – DS Nick Bailey – has been discharged from hospital, and if he is continuing to suffer ill effects, we have not been told about it. This is not consistent with nerve agent poisoning.

The testimony of the late Soviet chemical weapons scientist Andrei Zheleznyakov indicates that anybody exposed to a nerve agent will die – possibly after years spent battling its effects. Mr Zheleznyakov died six years after he was exposed to an experimental Novichok in 1987, after battling cirrhosis, toxic hepatitis, nerve damage and epilepsy.

Does DS Bailey have to face this? It seems not. All the reports indicate that his ordeal is over and he will be able to go back to normal life.

To this, we can add information from Stephen Davies, a consultant in emergency medicine at Salisbury District Hospital, where the Skripals and DS Bailey have been treated.

In a letter to The Times, he stated: “No patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning.”

The full letter, re-published by Off-Guardian, states:

Sir, Further to your report (“Poison Exposure Leaves Almost 40 Needing Treatment”, Mar 14), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.
STEPHEN DAVIES, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust
He was saying three people were poisoned, with an “agent” – not a “nerve-agent”.

If we consider alternatives, it becomes clear very quickly that weed killers which include the organophosphate known as glyphosate among their ingredients can cause severe harm.

Initially, this type of poisoning can cause watery eyes and excess salivation. Breathing difficulties often occur, along with nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach cramps. The fingernails and lips can become blue. The person might develop a headache and feel both dizzy and weak. They might also experience anxiety and convulsions, and may slip into a coma. Organophosphates are especially dangerous because they can be easily absorbed through the skin and cause paralysis and death in a short period of time. Even if a person survives, they may suffer permanent brain damage.

Compare this with the description of Novichok nerve agent poisoning by Vil Mirzayanov, a Russian chemist who wrote a book about it.

He said the nerve agent can affect the eyes, constricting the pupils. It causes wheezing, shortness of breath, and excessive fluid secretion in the lungs, along with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. The affected person may experience convulsions and slip into a coma. Death can occur by asphyxiation or cardiac arrest.

I know these symptoms are not identical – but they are similar enough, don’t you think?

Especially notable is the mention of permanent brain damage as a result of organophosphate poisoning. Reports of DS Bailey’s discharge from hospital also warn that the Skripals’ mental capacity may be “compromised to an unknown and so far unascertained degree.”

Organophosphate poisoning may be treated with many chemicals, most notably atropine. It would be interesting to know whether this was applied to DS Bailey.

Taking the above into account, it seems entirely possible that the Salisbury poisoning was not the result of a Novichok deployed by Vladimir Putin, but that of a clumsy groundsperson spraying Gallup 360.

The Independent Online
Police investigating chemical warfare tests at a Ministry of Defence research centre in Wiltshire are now thought to be examining at least 45 deaths.

Police investigating chemical warfare tests at a Ministry of Defence research centre in Wiltshire are now thought to be examining at least 45 deaths.

Their inquiry initially focused on the death of Ronald Maddison, who died in 1953 after he was exposed to the nerve gas sarin B in trials at the Porton Down centre. Wiltshire Police are believed to be looking at another 45 cases where relatives claim death was caused by the tests.

The force would not confirm a figure last night but did say that relatives had made a series of allegations. Some Wiltshire Police sources were quoted as saying the inquiry could eventually include 70 deaths as a result of the complaints.

The investigation began after former servicemen, who were among about 20,000 workers tested at Porton Down over the past 80 years, alleged they were tricked into volunteering for dangerous chemical warfare tests in the Fifties and Sixties.

Many believe they suffered respiratory illnesses, skin diseases, heart and lung problems and poor eyesight because of the tests. If their complaints are upheld, the MoD faces multi-million-pound compensation claims.

One of the most serious allegations centres on Maddison, who died aged 20 after liquid sarin was applied to his arm. The death certificate for Maddison, of Consett, Co Durham says he died from asphyxia. The coroner's report into his death has never been released. Maddison's representatives allege that scientists wanted to see how long the chemical took to seep through battle dress.

Wiltshire Police's investigation was originally expected to finish last month but last night a force spokesman said it had "some way to run" and was not expected to end before the end of the year.

The spokesman said that confirming the number of deaths under investigation was not helpful because it led to relatives contacting the inquiry team to see if their case was included, which took time away from working on the inquiry.

Wiltshire Police have asked the Home Office for help in meeting the bill for the inquiry, which was standing at £340,000 last month, with running costs at £40,000 a month.

Yesterday, five new officers seconded from the Army, Navy and Air Force's own police services joined the investigators. The team, headed by a detective superintendent, already included two MoD police officers, six detectives, four constables and two support staff. Crown Prosecution Service lawyers and Home Office staff also advise the team. The Metropolitan Police has reviewed the case and said it needed further investigation and resources but the Home Office rarely gives special assistance payments.

As part of the inquiry, detectives have travelled to the United States. The Pentagon agreed to pay compensation to members of its armed forces whose health was affected by similar nerve gas experiments carried out there.

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Once upon a time in the land of make believe...... a beautiful Russian lady called Yulia was visiting her father in England - when them BADDIES from her homeland stuck her and her papa down. But despite the press saying Yulia may never recover - A MIRACLE was ordered -THE END. pic.twitter.com/vJs0zuaZEc

Furious China ramps up support for Russia on Skripal, calls West’s actions “outrageous”
Global Times says West disregards due process, bullies Russia, no longer leads world community, threatens other nations,

Global Times – unofficial English language organ of China’s ruling Communist Party – has published a scorching editorial savaging the West’s bullying of Russia over the Skripal case.

The editorial notes the West’s disregard of basic courtesies and of due process, and warns that other countries – including implicitly China – may one day find themselves in the same crosshairs for this sort of attack.

The editorial also reminds the Western powers that so far from representing “the world community” they represent only a small part of it.

The editorial is so trenchant and so strong – going so much further than any editorial I have seen in a Chinese newspaper supporting Russia in its conflict with the West, including two previous editorials which Global Times has itself published on the Skripal case – that I am going to set it out in full

On March 26, the US, Canada, and several European Union countries expelled Russian diplomats from their respective foreign embassies and consulates in retaliation against Russia’s alleged poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. As of this writing, 19 countries, including 15 EU member states, have shown their support to Great Britain by enforcing such measures.

On March 4, Skripal and his daughter Yulia were rushed to a hospital after they were found unconscious at a park in Salisbury. It was later reported the father and daughter had come into contact with an obscure nerve agent. UK government officials said the Skripals were attacked by “Novichok,” a powerful Soviet-era chemical nerve agent used by the military.

The British government did not provide evidence that linked Russia to the crime but was confident from the beginning there could be no other “reasonable explanation” for the attempted assassination. Great Britain was so convinced of their Russia theory, they wasted no time taking the lead in levying sanctions against the country by quickly expelling Russian diplomats from London. Shortly afterwards, UK capital officials reached out to NATO and their European allies who provided immediate support.

The accusations that Western countries have hurled at Russia are based on ulterior motives, similar to how the Chinese use the expression “perhaps it’s true” to seize upon the desired opportunity. From a third-person perspective, the principles and diplomatic logic behind such drastic efforts are flawed, not to mention that expelling Russian diplomats almost simultaneously isa crude form of behavior. Such actions make little impact other than increasing hostility and hatred between Russia and their Western counterparts.

The UK government should have an independent investigation conducted into the Skripal poisoning by representatives from the international community. An effort such as this would provide results strong enough for those following the case to make up their minds on who should or shouldn’t be accused of the crime. Now, the majority of those who support Britain’s one-sided conclusion happen to be members of NATO and the EU, while others stood behind the UK due to long-standing relations.

The fact that major Western powers can gang up and “sentence” a foreign country without following the same procedures other countries abide by and according to the basic tenets of international law is chilling. During the Cold War, not one Western nation would have dared to make such a provocation and yet today it is carried out with unrestrained ease. Such actions are nothing more than a form of Western bullying that threatens global peace and justice.

Over the past few years the international standard has been falsified and manipulated in ways never seen before. The fundamental reason behind reducing global standards is rooted in post-Cold War power disparities. The US, along with their allies, jammed their ambitions into the international standards so their actions, which were supposed to follow a set of standardized procedures and protocol, were really nothing more than profit-seizing opportunities designed only for themselves. These same Western nations activated in full-force public opinion-shaping platforms and media agencies to defend and justify such privileges.

As of late, more foreign countries have been victimized by Western rhetoric and nonsensical diplomatic measures. In the end, the leaders of these nations are forced to wear a hat featuring slogans and words that read “oppressing their own people,” “authoritarian,” or “ethnic cleansing,” regardless of their innocence.

It is beyond outrageous how the US and Europe have treated Russia. Their actions represent a frivolity and recklessness that has grown to characterize Western hegemony that only knows how to contaminate international relations. Right now is the perfect time for non-Western nations to strengthen unity and collaborative efforts among one another. These nations need to establish a level of independence outside the reach of Western influence while breaking the chains of monopolization declarations, predetermined adjudications, and come to value their own judgement abilities.

It’s already understood that to achieve such international collective efforts is easier said than done as they require foundational support before anything can happen. Until a new line of allies emerges, multi-national associations like BRICS, or even the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, need to provide value to those non-Western nations and actively create alliances with them.

What Russia is experiencing right could serve as a reflection of how other non-Western nations can expect to be treated in the not-to-distant future. Expelling Russian diplomats simultaneously is hardly enough to deter Russia. Overall, it’s an intimidation tactic that has become emblematic of Western nations, and furthermore, such measures are not supported by international law and therefore unjustified. More importantly, the international community should have the tools and means to counterbalance such actions.

The West is only a small fraction of the world and is nowhere near the global representative it once thought it was. The silenced minorities within the international community need to realize this and prove just how deep their understanding is of such a realization by proving it to the world through action. With the Skripal case, the general public does not know the truth, and the British government has yet to provide a shred of evidence justifying their allegations against Russia.

It is firmly believed that accusations levied by one country to another that are not the end results of a thorough and professional investigation should not be encouraged. Simultaneously expelling diplomats is a form of uncivilized behavior that needs to be abolished immediately.

In my experience China – even in editorials in Global Times, which are unofficial – invariably sets out its views in measured terms, preferring to avoid tough language though always making its views clear.

This editorial is different, showing the depth of Chinese anger about the way the Western powers have been conducting themselves over the last few weeks, which note that the editorial characterises as “uncivilised behaviour”.

Even a short visit to China – such as one which I did in August – suffices to show how much importance the Chinese attach to “civilised behaviour”, and how strong this criticism coming from them therefore is.

'...A plane by Russia's Aeroflot has been searched by British authorities at London Heathrow airport who gave no reason for the examination. Russia’s Foreign Ministry called it "provocation" as international rules were breached.
The British officials went aboard an Aeroflot plane, which arrived from Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow to the British capital on Thursday. The officers said they needed to inspect the plane without explaining the reasons for the action and demanded the crew to leave the plane. The captain refused to abandon the aircraft as it’s against regulations to inspect an aircraft in the absence of the crew. Yet the authorities proceeded with the search without releasing the commander from his cabin....'

Diplomacy? Evidence? International laws? Wot, we worry?
We're British - we're exceptional!(-ly good at warmongering and lying)._________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

“on Apr 3 2009, Hillary Clinton, as SecyState, sent instructions to US chemical weapon negotiators to “avoid any substantive discussion of the Mirazayanov book” on novichoks and “discourage substantive discussions” if issue arose. Why?”

A tentative reason ‘Why’ the Yanks and Brits tried to stifle discussion on this could be that the germ of a nice Anti-Russian ‘False Flag’ event had started to germinate in their diseased brains.

'(S) CWC: INQUIRIES IN THE HAGUE ABOUT MIRZAYANOV "STATE SECRETS" BOOK':
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09THEHAGUE205_a.html_________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

'...The Skripals were said to have left their home at 9:00am in the morning. They collapsed relatively sudden at 4:00pm in the afternoon. Is this seven hour delay consistent with being severely affected by a "military grade" highly toxic nerve agent? I doubt it.

But even if a nerve agent of the 'novichok' type was involved the jump to allegations against Russia is completely baseless. David B. Collum is Professor for Organic Chemistry at Cornell University. He really, really knows this stuff:

Dave Collum @DavidBCollum - 12:54 AM - 27 Mar 2018
I will say it again: Anybody who tells you this nerve agent must have come from Russia is a liar--a complete and utter liar. They are simple compounds.
The Skripals are getting better. Good for them. But their resurrection from certain death is a further dint in the British government's claim of 'nerve agent' 'of a type developed by Russia'.

The whole anti-Russian campaign constructed out of it is just ridiculous and deeply dishonest. The five page propaganda handout the British provided to other governments is a joke. It provided no solid facts on the case. To respond to it rationally, as Russia tries to do, makes little sense.

An editorial (recommended) in the Chinese Global Times captures the utter disgust such behavior creates elsewhere:

The fact that major Western powers can gang up and "sentence" a foreign country without following the same procedures other countries abide by and according to the basic tenets of international law is chilling.
...
Over the past few years the international standard has been falsified and manipulated in ways never seen before.
...
It is beyond outrageous how the US and Europe have treated Russia. Their actions represent a frivolity and recklessness that has grown to characterize Western hegemony that only knows how to contaminate international relations. Right now is the perfect time for non-Western nations to strengthen unity and collaborative efforts among one another.
Resurrection or not - the result of the 'Novichok' nonsense will not be to our 'western' favor....'_________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

What you are reading is a list of organophosphate toxins. I believe the Skripals were poisoned with an item found in this list. But I doubt very much that it was one of the listed nerve gasses: Soman, sarin, tabun, or VX. The Skripals were likely poisoned with one of the other organophosphates found in this list.

The nerve gasses Soman, sarin, tabun, and VX are military grade toxins. What the Salisbury doctor is saying is that the Skripals, and detective Bailey were poisoned, but they were not poisoned with a military grade agent as Theresa May and Boris Johnson would wish you to believe.

If Craig Murray is accurate in his reporting, what Porton Down is saying under pressure is that the agent was “of a type developed by Russia.” Porton Down does not make the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by a military grade nerve agent. Porton Down is making the claim that they were poisoned by a type of organophosphate of the type the Russian’s were attempting to recreate as a binary nerve agent. There is a significant difference.

Porton Down is known to contain a sophisticated treatment center capable of treating persons poisoned by a military grade nerve agent. If in fact the Skripals and Detective Bailey had been poisoned by a military grade nerve agent they would have been relocated to Porton Down for treatment. That they remain under treatment in Salisbury Hospital is evidence that they were not poisoned by a military grade nerve agent as alleged by Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

I have been through military NBC training as has Cassandra who wrote in the Part I comments that with a military grade nerve agent “a drop on your skin is enough to rapidly disable you and, if an antidote isn’t rapidly administered, kill you in very short order.”

I agree with his statement. Note that what is being referenced are military grade nerve agents of western origin such as VX. Russian research sought to increase the lethality of the same agents 2 to 7 times by recreating them in binary form. The fact the Skripals are still alive and under treatment is prima facie evidence that they were not attacked by a military grade nerve agent of the Novichok type originally researched by Russia.

It is believed the intended target of the attack was Sergei Skripal, a dual citizen of Russia and the UK.

Skripal had an estimated 14 year career as an agent of the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence which focuses on obtaining information about external threats to Russia. Its activities include the cultivation and recruitment of foreign nationals willing to provide threat information for either ideological, or pecuniary motive.

In 1995 Skripal is reported to have offered his services to MI6, the UK counterpart to the GRU. For 9 years, until his arrest, Skripal is believed to have provided MI6 with information on more than 300 individuals resident within western nations who were actively co-operating with the GRU and providing foreign threat information to the GRU.

The information provided by Skripal would have permitted western counter-intelligence agencies to identify those persons acting covertly in cooperation with the GRU. Once identified, these individuals would have been removed from positions of responsibility which gave them access to valuable intelligence.

This implies that Skripal’s actions damaged the credibility and the careers of a great many individuals, some of whom may have been denied advancement due to the suspicions raised against them. Some of the implicated persons would have been removed from positions of trust and dismissed with a loss of pension, or other benefits. Those dismissed are unlikely to have received positive references and this, coupled with the fact they had specialised skills only in demand within defence or similar industries, may have precluded them from obtaining similar future employment.

Each of the affected individuals is likely to have had a spouse, children, relatives, and other associates who may have been aware of the circumstance of their demotion, or dismissal.

Since intelligence and counter-intelligence operations are cloaked in secrecy, and deception is an integral aspect of such activity, the quality of evidence against specific individuals may be less than that required for a conviction in a court of law. The presumed danger to the state is so grave that suspect individuals will be removed from access based only on suspicion and this suspicion may be erroneous and unfounded.

In the game of spy versus spy it is recognized that if you discover a secret information conduit to the opposition you can fill that conduit with false and misleading information and by so doing greatly disrupt, and degrade, the operations of a foreign intelligence service. Such action would increase the number of unfairly targeted individuals.

It can therefore be assumed that there exists a significant body of persons who view Skripal with hostility, a traitor to some common cause, a man who cast suspicion on others, and who has done so for his own benefit. Revenge forms the primary motive.

Skripal lived under his own name and is known to have travelled to lecture at various military establishments. Some of these lectures may have been covered in the local press permitting an aggrieved party to identify Skripal, and to locate his place of residence.

It is presumed that many of the aggrieved have training in military skills and intelligence trade craft. It is further presumed that they have the potential to apply those skills to track and observe Skripal and determine his movement patterns.

The same military skills and trade craft would give the aggrieved party knowledge of military grade nerve agents and their commercial analogs. Once the toxic agent is obtained, and the method of attack prepared, all that is required is the opportunity to spend under a minute alongside Skripal’s vehicle.
https://thesaker.is/a-curious-incident-part-iii/

Part 4 - Skripal Attack Conjecture

The Market Walk is a pedestrian tunnel. This presents four problems for an attacker. If you attack within the tunnel, you have only two available exits. If someone wants to stop you, it is possible for them to trap you by closing off one, or both ends.

Second, the tunnel blocks visibility to the area beyond the exit on each end. The attacker has no way of knowing if a police cruiser has just stopped adjacent on Castle Street.

The third problem is critical. Go buy an aerosol can of orange spray paint, change into a clean white shirt, stand three feet from a wall, hold up the aerosol can and spray an imagined target. When you later examine your shirt sleeve and shirt front you will find it speckled with orange pigment. If you laid out sheets of white paper and returned a few hours after spraying you will find the white sheets also exhibit trace amounts of orange pigment. If the orange pigment was actually a military grade toxin like VX then congratulations – you have just killed yourself.

An attack within the still air of the arcade presents a similar problem. Any sprayed powder, or liquid, creates a toxic cloud of blowback which endangers the attacker.

To safely conduct the attack would necessitate the attacker(s) wearing breathing apparatus. You may have noticed from the news coverage that people wearing breathing apparatus have a distinct look about them. It is extremely difficult to run for any distance wearing BA gear; believe me, I have tested this fact. Blowback contamination requires the attackers to quickly change their clothing. If they do not they will be poisoned by the same toxin applied to the Skripals.

The fourth and final problem is the fact the arcade contains a CCTV camera. Image B shows distortion. This distortion is due to the fact the image was created using a fisheye lens, one which covers a field of view of 180 degrees and therefore shows both the east and west approaches to the store entrance. Any attacker would survey potential attack sites in advance and identify the presence of CCTV equipment. Such sites would either be avoided, or the CCTV disabled.

May makes the claim the Skripals were attacked with a military grade nerve agent of a type developed in Russia. This is the same as declaring the death of Kim Jong-nam on 13 February 2017 was due to a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by the UK. According to May’s logic the world should impose sanctions on the UK and withdraw all diplomatic representation.

It is believed the Skripals exited the arcade tunnel and crossed the bridge before the attack. Whereas the arcade tunnel previously presented obstacles to the attackers, it now offers benefits. The bridge and tunnel combination serves to channel and restrict all foot traffic coming from the East. The jog turn past the G&T shop obscures visibility from the South. Images taken on the day of attack show a light rain appears to be falling. This would ensure few pedestrians in the park to the North.

It is suspected that two attackers approached from the West walking toward the Skripals. As they came within range they pulled out aerosol guns and sprayed their victims. The toxic spray would have flooded the Skripals eyes. Unable to see, they made for the nearest seating, which was the park bench. The eyes represent a point of entry into the body. The mucous around the eye, and they eye itself, is an immediate conduit to the bloodstream.

The attackers continued on, walking as if nothing at all had happened. Only a few seconds would have been required to make the attack and, if you find yourself suddenly blinded, you put your hands to your eyes and try to move yourself to a place of refuge such as the adjacent park bench. You don’t cry out. You are too busy tending to your eyes. You are in cognitive shock with no true understanding of what just occurred.

In the first media reports of the attack, when the incident was still under local police control, there was a request for public assistance to locate a couple seen walking in the area at the time of the attack. Once control of the case passed to the Met Terrorist Investigation team, this request was no longer made.

There has been limited coverage of the people who first responded to the scene. The first person to discover the Skripals was a woman who reportedly found them to be so incapacitated she believed herself unable to render any assistance. This women is believed to be the person who first notified the police. Detective Bailey was likely nearby on patrol. He heard the police radio broadcast and he immediately responded. There were other persons reported to be present on scene but no names, or identification, or interviews, can be found. MSM reporting does indicate that a passing physician placed Yulia Skripal in the recovery position.

Further Conjecture

What follows is further conjecture. It is likely the toxin utilized was a liquid agent based on organophosphate chemistry. It was discharged as a stream, or jet, from an engineered applicator something like a very sophisticated water pistol. Two targets, two applicators, two streams. The streams splashed against the face of each target and washed into his and her eyes blinding the victim. The toxin is fast acting. Ten times more lethal than VX. Within the space of scant seconds you are vomiting and experiencing muscle seizures. You lose control of your faculties. You are no longer able to cry out. Your muscles cease to operate under voluntary control. You are unable to rise from the bench and stand, your chest muscles are beginning to experience tightness and seizure activity and you are beginning to have great difficulty breathing. You defecate and urinate but are completely unaware of this. You have not had sufficient time to come to a conscious understanding of what has befallen you before all of your cognitive functions are impaired. Unconsciousness quickly follows.

The ideal toxic agent would be highly volatile in addition to being fast acting. Target knock down occurs within seconds of toxin application as opposed to the minutes available under a VX attack. This high degree of volatility means the excess agent would immediately begin to degrade and disperse, eliminating any trace evidence of the applied toxin. The intent is to ensure the knockdown and immediate incapacitation of the target, with a lessened possibility of secondary collateral attacks such as affected first responder Detective Bailey. It is likely some of the persons who first responded to the scene were confederates to the attackers, persons with the responsibility to clean up the incident site, prevent injury to others, and ensure any residual trace evidence was wiped away, or otherwise neutralized. These good Samaritans vanished and have never been interviewed by the Guardian, or the BBC, or any other major “news” outlet. Which is a little surprising considering the British press is known to pay top dollar for stories which can be headlined “I was present at the opening shot of WWIII.”

The couple is reported to have departed Zizzi at 1535. The calculated timing would therefore place them in the bench area at 15:36:30. This creates a conflict with the time stamp shown on the CCTC which recorded their passage at 15:47:45.

If we discard the portion of the route from Zizzi to the CCTV camera and create a time line with a start point of 15:47:45 and a walk duration of 43 seconds this places the Skripals in the bench area at 15:48:32.

Total elapsed time from arrival in bench area to first notification to emergency services is 15 mins 28 seconds. Even if the walk time estimate is doubled, this still results in a period of 14 minutes from when the Skripals arrived in the bench area before the emergency services received notification. There was a further 11 minute interval before the first responders arrived on scene at 16:15 and the victims were not removed to hospital until 55 minutes later at 17:10.

The emergency care delivered to the Skripals during this period is not known. It is highly unlikely that emergency medical service personnel would have diagnosed them as suffering from a military grade nerve agent. The first emergency aid would involve intubation and placing both Skripals on a ventilator. Yulia Skripal is reported to have been airlifted to hospital. It is not known why both victims were not airlifted [update – reporting from March 4 states that Skripal was conscious when transported to hospital but his daughter was unconscious]. The on-scene medics would likely have been in communication with a hospital physician as, apart from an immediate need for ventilation, it is unlikely an EMS technician would be able to undertake a more comprehensive diagnosis. From MSM reporting it appears it was not until the afternoon of March 5th that there was some awareness that this incident involved something beyond a recreational drug overdose. While there appears to be some discrepancy over the timing of events, there is no evident disagreement over the fact the nerve agents created as part of the FOLIANT research program are 8 to 10 times more potent than VX (in one report Vil Mirzayanov. claims the newly discovered nerve agent is 100 times more potent than VX}.

A single drop of VX on the skin is sufficient to result in death within one minute if there is no immediate administration of an antidote.

The nerve agent reported to be used in the Skripal attack is 10 times more toxic, perhaps even stronger than that.

How is it possible for the Skripals to still be alive?

Does the fact of their longevity provide evidence that they were not attacked with a nerve agent 10 times more toxic than VX?

Does that imply May has been misleading the British and global public about these events?

We opened this article with a review of the advantages of making the attack in the London Road Cemetery. It is believed that would be the location selected by any competent state actor. The fact that a less than optimum location was used indicates either a wholly incompetent state actor, or an attack undertaken with the deliberate intent of arousing the maximum amount of fear in the populace. What we are examining is not a dodgy dossier. It is an extremely dodgy attempt at an assassination undertaken in the most inept possible way.

The question is why?

Many persons commenting on the Saker blog, and in information sources other than the MSM, have made statement similar to the following:

While scanning for news that morning I noticed that all of the MSM had basically the same text to describe the event, but in a few cases different headlines, mainly dependent on which side of the Pond they came from. I skipped them, they seemed too coordinated.

Sergei Skripal's knowledge of Russian personnel & tactics must not now be of much value.
Whereas his Intel on Orbis Business Intelligence, Pablo Miller & Jonathan Steele may be golddust.
If he, disillusioned, wanted to tell Russia, he could be an MI6 dead man

Returning to the farce that is the Skripal nerve agent poisoning and the insults that I received when I posted my suspicions yesterday that the whole thing was staged, here are some questions for consideration. If your debating skills amount to nothing more than statements such as 'Load of *' then I suggest you jog on, this is not for you.

1. The photos shown of the scene of the incident are not those of a HAZMAT area. I have personal experience of NBC (nuclear, chemical, biological) decontamination procedures from my time in the military.
On many images there are members of emergency services, dressed in normal uniform, yet in close proximity to operatives dressed in HAZMAT suits. There are clear guidelines for incidents of this nature. (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/5914/2124406.pdf).

2. Novichock

Novichok is a binary agent - it requires two or more non-hazardous precursors to be mixed to produce the agent just prior to its use. It is five to eight times more potent than VX, which was used to assassinate Kim Jong Un’s brother, Kim Jong-nam. It took only a few minutes to kill him.
Main stream media have stated Novichock was on the park bench where the couple were found. That later changed to it being in the restaurant and the latest lunacy is that it was on Skripal's front door. The revelation that it was on the front door came some 3 weeks after the event. How many police have touched that front door in the last 3 weeks?
Nerve agents can take weeks, months or even years to dissipate and it only takes a microscopic amount to kill.

3. Unanswered questions.

The Russian embassy in London have asked the following 27 questions, all legitimate bearing in mind the rush to judgement;

1) What is Mr and Ms Skripal's exact diagnosis and condition?

2) What treatment are they receiving?

3) Is that treatment the same as that provided to Sgt Nick Bailey?

4) Is it true that Yulia Skripal has regained consciousness and can communicate, eat and drink?

5) Mr Bailey has been discharged, Yulia Skripal is getting better, but why is Sergei Skripal still in a critical condition?

6) Did Mr Bailey, Mr Skripal and Ms Skripal receive antidotes?

7) Which antidotes?

8) How were the right antidotes identified?

9) Did they actually help or harm?

10) The Embassy immediately informed the FCO that Mr Skripal's niece has been enquiring of her uncle's and cousin's health. Why have the authorities ignored her?

11) Why are there no photos/videos confirming that the Skripals are alive and at hospital?

12) Did the Skripals agree on Salisbury CCTV footage to be shown on TV?

13) If not, who agreed on their behalf?

14) Can that person also agree on hospital photos/videos to be published?

15) Why are consuls not allowed to see the Skripals?

16) How are doctors protected against chemical exposure?

17) Can consuls use the same protection?

18) Where, how and by whom were blood samples collected from the Skripals?

19) How was it documented?

20) Who can certify that the data is credible?

21) How can we be sure that the chain of custody was up to international standards?

22) Through what methods did experts identify the substance so quickly?

23) Had they possessed a sample against which to test the substance?

24) Where had that sample come from?

25) Nerve agents act immediately. Why was it not the case with the Skripals?

26) Leaks suggest the Skripals were poisoned at a pub, at a restaurant, in their car, at the airport, at home... Which version is the official one?

27) How to reconcile quick political moves with Scotland Yard's statement that the investigation will take "months"?

4. Was it Novichock?

Porton Down have not stated that the nerve agent is Novichock, this despite Boris Johnson making the following statement;

However in a judgement at the High Court which gave permission for new blood samples to be taken from the Skripals for use by the OPCW. Justice Williams included in his judgement a summary of the evidence which tells us, directly for the first time, what Porton Down have actually said:

-Why don't you expel 76 Soviet diplomats? That has been our practice in the past. [...] -A great headline for you: Govt Cracks Down on Red Spy Ring. Very patriotic.-It must be a story that nobody can disprove.-And which will be believed even if it's denied. pic.twitter.com/qjHRZTD8W2

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Fourteen questions are currently being asked of the UK government by Russia in what the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, calls a “fabricated” case. It includes questions on why the French were involved in technical issues regarding the investigation, whether the UK was producing nerve agents, what antidote was given at the scene of the crime, why has Russia been denied consular access and other searching requests for information. On top of those I have a question myself.

Where did you source the #Novichok idea for the show you wrote then Jack - just curious.Any particular reason why, as writers, we should be worried about Russia... since NATO has spent thirty years since #Peristroika surrounding the country?

[/html]_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

@TonyGosling claims that that Chatham House is behind this 'Russia did it' story, here's the interesting bit, Sir Simon McDonald permanent under secretary to the FCO is married to the daughter of the former chairman of RIIA (1995-99) Baron Wright of Richmond @Rachael_Swindon

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

The hosts of the 60 Minute show on state-owned Rossiya 1 - Yevgeny Popov and Olga Skabeyeva - said they were unable to confirm the authenticity of the phone call.
Viktoria: Hello?
Alleged Yulia: Hello. Do you hear me?
Viktoria: Yes, I hear you.
Alleged Yulia: It is Yulia Skripal.
Viktoria: Oh, Yulka [diminutive of Yulia] it is you! I recognise from your voice that it is you but cannot understand. So, they gave you a telephone, didn't they?
Alleged Yulia: Yes, yes.
Viktoria: Thanks God! Yulyash [diminutive of Yulia], is everything okay with you?
Alleged Yulia: Everything is ok, everything is fine.
Viktoria: Look, if tomorrow I get a (British) visa, I will come to you on Monday.
Alleged Yulia: Vika, no-one will give you the visa.
Viktoria: Well I thought so too. Oh well.
Alleged Yulia: Most likely.
Viktoria: If they give it, I need you to tell me whether I can visit you or not, tell me that I can.
Alleged Yulia: I think no, there is such a situation now, we'll sort it out later.
Viktoria: I know it, I know it all.
Alleged Yulia: Later, we will get it sorted later, everything's fine, we'll see later.
Viktoria: Is it your phone?
Alleged Yulia: It is a temporary phone. Everything is fine, but we'll see how it goes, we'll decide later. You know what the situation is here. Everything is fine, everything is solvable, everyone (he and her father) is recovering and is alive.
Viktoria: Clear! Is everything ok with your father?
Alleged Yulia: Everything is ok. He is resting now, having a sleep. Everyone's health is fine, there are no irreparable things. I will be discharged soon. Everything is ok.
Viktoria: Kisses, my bunny.
Alleged Yulia: Bye.
The recording was reportedly made on the morning of 5 April

via youtube wrote:

robin hood 2 days ago
The BBC reported the agent used was TEN TIMES more deadly than VX nerve gas. I found on the CDC website that VX is known to be the most powerful nerve gas EVER DEVELOPED. And it is 100% lethal on skin contact within 5 to 15 minutes. And inhaled in a well ventilated environment you can survive it albeit with respiratory damage and brain damage.
So if this unknown agent is 10 times more deadly than VX everyone exposed would be DEAD. That's it! and how many have died? 0. In fact Yulia is doing ok... so she was NOT nerve gassed then.

The news reports also change on a daily basis, the number of people exposed varies between 2 to 131 people depending on the day, And the locations the Skripals were gassed are everywhere! The gas was in their car air vents, on a park bench, in a pub, in her luggage, and they were also sprayed on their doorstep too... Which is? this is a joke right?
Did they even recover a canister or anything?

Then did you guys see the leaked 6 page power point document our government handed out to all the world leaders to sway their loyalty to the UK? It looked like something a 10 year old could have made in school. Some generic pictures of Russian, a few bullet points which basically read as "Russians use Novichok" "Russians bad"
I mean seriously?

And poor comrade corbyn... just trying to be a logical voice of reason = treason right? I want to get out of the UK. This place has gone to the dogs.﻿
Show less

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G7M9MbUOTg
2017We interviewed James Sherr, Associate Fellow at Chatham House on May 17, 2017. Sherr was a subject matter expert on our Loisach Group round table discussion on German-US partnership and engagement with Russia.

1:02 Why is a discussion about reengagement with Russia so important?
2:51 How has the Ukraine security situation impacted engagement with Russia and U.S.-German-Russia relations?
5:34 What recommendations would you give to policymakers on reengagement with Russia?
7:32 If you could sell your "bill of goods" on Russian reengagement, what would be your selling point?
8:01 As we continue this discussion, are there other partners or expertise that should be part of this group?
9:31 Anything else you would like to say?
10:49 Why is it important that the Marshall Center hosts the Loisach Group Forum?_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

This is such a brilliant analysis IMO - presumably from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
worth a bump

TonyGosling wrote:

Ambassadors generally beat about the bush.
But this is not beating about the bush.

Whitehall_Bin_Men wrote:

The Russian Ambassador to the UK is giving an interview now to RT's Anastasia Churkina about the chemical-poisoning of a former Russian spy allegations being made by PM Theresa May and the British government against Russia and President Putin.

The Main Points:
It is obvious the charges by the UK against Russia about this "poisoning" incident are false, and expose a deeper strategy of deceit to obtain political objectives. the British government is refusing to answer any questions, provide any material, invite international scientific inspections, and have tried to emotionally hyperventilate this fake story into a nightmare reality. Why? The Globalist UK-EU-US-SOROS types are desperate to ignite a war in order to hide in its flames. The "psychological operation" seems to be attempting to achieve the following objectives:

1) the political-career stabilization of the establishment Prime Minister Theresa May, who has been slipping into madness and oblivion since BREXIT;

2) the demonization of Russia as an easy enemy that distracts the public away from the slow destruction of civil liberties and rights and freedoms by the rising police state;

3) the cultivation and preparation of the public mind to be receptive to increased domination and control by the government;

4) the expansion of the "chemical weapon" narrative as a potential threat against "New York", as claimed by US UN Rep Nikki Haley, as well as other UK-US-NATO members;

5) the potential "suspension" of the BREXIT and European Union break-up using this incident as a "call to reverse course and re-integrate the European Union with Britain and France as a matter of "continental security against Russia";

6) the manipulation of American President Donald Trump to buy in and partner in the lie, and participate in the political war as a pre-text for the military one brewing;

7) justify increased military movement of weapons into Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen to try and counter Russia-Iran's success in the Syrian war against Wahhabi-Saudi-Israeli terrorists pushing ISIS/AL NUSRA to try and destabilize Syrian President Bashar Assad;

The blow back will be a separation of the thinking people from the mindless idiots in society, and an increase in social distrust and hostility towards the politicians and media and government institutions fomenting instability and the destruction of personal civil liberty through manufactured national hysteria. Essentially they've cried wolf far too many times to be given any respect by intelligent, honest citizens.

What is left of the government’s definitive identification of Russia as the culprit in the Salisbury attack? It is a simple truth that Russia is not the only state that could have made the nerve agent: dozens of them could. It could also have been made by many non-state actors.

Motorola sales agent Gary Aitkenhead – inexplicably since January, Chief Executive of Porton Down chemical weapons establishment – said in his Sky interview that “probably” only a state actor could create the nerve agent. That is to admit the possibility that a non state actor could. David Collum, Professor of Organo-Chemistry at Cornell University, infinitely more qualified than a Motorola salesman, has stated that his senior students could do it. Professor Collum tweeted me this morning.

The key point in his tweet is, of course “if asked”. The state and corporate media has not asked Prof. Collum nor any of the Professors of Organic Chemistry in the UK. There simply is no basic investigative journalism happening around this case.

So given that the weapon itself is not firm evidence it was Russia that did it, what is Boris Johnson’s evidence? It turns out that the British government’s evidence is no more than the technique of smearing nerve agent on the door handle. All of the UK media have been briefed by “security sources” that the UK has a copy of a secret Russian assassin training manual detailing how to put nerve agent on door handles, and that given the nerve agent was found on the Skripals door handle, this is the clinching evidence which convinced NATO allies of Russia’s guilt.

As the Daily Mirror reported in direct quotes of the “security source”

“It amounts to Russia’s tradecraft manual on applying poison to door handles. It’s the smoking gun. It is strong proof that in the last ten years Russia has researched methods to apply poisons, including by using door handles. The significant detail is that these were the facts that helped persuade allies it could only be Russia that did this.”
Precisely the same government briefing is published by the Daily Mail in a bigger splash here, and reflected in numerous other mainstream propaganda outlets.

Two questions arise. How credible is the British government’s possession of a Russian secret training manual for using novichok agents, and how credible is it that the Skripals were poisoned by their doorknob.

To take the second question first, I see major problems with the notion that the Skripals were poisoned by their doorknob.

The first is this. After what Dame Sally Davis, Chief Medical officer for England, called “rigorous scientific analysis” of the substance used on the Skripals, the government advised those who may have been in contact to wash their clothes and wipe surfaces with warm water and wet wipes. Suspect locations were hosed down by the fire brigade.

But if the substance was in a form that could be washed away, why was it placed on an external door knob? It was in point of fact raining heavily in Salisbury that day, and indeed had been for some time.

Can somebody explain to me the scenario in which two people both touch the exterior door handle in exiting and closing the door? And if it transferred from one to the other, why did it not also transfer to the doctor who gave extensive aid that brought her in close bodily contact, including with fluids?

The second problem is that the Novichok family of nerve agents are instant acting. There is no such thing as a delayed reaction nerve agent. Remember we have been specifically told by Theresa May that this nerve agent is up to ten times more powerful than VX, the Porton Down developed nerve agent that killed Kim’s brother in 15 minutes.

But if it was on the doorknob, the last contact they could possibly have had with the nerve agent was a full three hours before it took effect. Not only that, they were well enough to drive, to walk around a shopping centre, visit a pub, and then – and this is the truly unbelievable bit – their central nervous systems felt in such good fettle, and their digestive systems so in balance, they were able to sit down and eat a full restaurant meal. Only after all that were they – both at precisely the same time despite their substantially different weights – suddenly struck down by the nerve agent, which went from no effects at all, to deadly, on an alarm clock basis.

This narrative simply is not remotely credible. Nerve agents – above all “military grade nerve agents” – were designed as battlefield weapons. They do not leave opponents fighting fit for hours. There is no description in the scientific literature of a nerve agent having this extraordinary time bomb effect. Here another genuine Professor describes their fast action in Scientific American:

“Unlike traditional poisons, nerve agents don’t need to be added to food and drink to be effective. They are quite volatile, colourless liquids (except VX, said to resemble engine oil). The concentration in the vapour at room temperature is lethal. The symptoms of poisoning come on quickly, and include chest tightening, difficulty in breathing, and very likely asphyxiation. Associated symptoms include vomiting and massive incontinence. Victims of the Tokyo subway attack were reported to be bringing up blood. Kim Jong-nam died in less than 20 minutes. Eventually, you die either through asphyxiation or cardiac arrest.”
If the nerve agent was on the door handle and they touched it, the onset of these symptoms would have occurred before they reached the car. They would certainly have not felt like sitting down to a good lunch two hours later. And they would have been dead three weeks ago. We all pray that Sergei also recovers.

The second part of the extraordinarily happy coincidence of the nerve agent being on the door handle, and the British government having a Russian manual on applying nerve agent to door handles, is whether the manual is real. It strikes me this is improbable – it rings far too much of the kind of intel they had on Iraqi WMD. It also allegedly dates from the last ten years, so Putin’s Russia, not the period of chaos, and the FSB is a pretty tight organisation in this period. MI6 penetration is just not that good.

A key question is of course how long the UK has had this manual, and what was its provenance. Another key question is why Britain failed to produce it to the OPCW – and indeed why it does not publish it now, with any identifying marks of the particular copy excluded, given it has widely publicised its existence and possession of it. If Boris Johnson wants to be believed by us, publish the Russian manual.

We also have to consider whether the FSB really publishes its secret assassination techniques in a manual. I attended, as other senior FCO staff, a number of MI6 training courses. One on explosives handling was at Fort Monckton, not too far from Salisbury. One in a very nondescript London office block was on bugging techniques. I recall seeing rigs set up to drill minute holes in walls, turning very slowly indeed. Many hours to get through the wall but almost no noise or vibration. It was where I learnt the government can listen to you through activating the microphone in your mobile phone, even when your phone is switched off. I recall javelin like directional microphones suspended from ceilings to point at distant targets, and a listening device that worked through a beam of infra-red light, but the target could foil by closing the curtains.

The point is that there were of course no manuals for this stuff, no manuals for any other secret MI6 techniques, and these things are not lightly written down.

I would add to this explanation that I lost all faith in the police investigation when it was taken out of the hands of the local police force and given to the highly politicised Metropolitan Police anti-terror squad. I suspect the explanation of the remarkably convenient (but physically impossible) evidence of the door handle method that precisely fits the “Russian manual” may lie there.

These are some of the problems I have with the official account of events. Boris lied about the certainty of the provenance of the nerve agent, and his fall back evidence is at present highly unconvincing. None of which proves it was not the Russian state that was responsible. But there is no convincing proof that it was, and there are several other possibilities. Eventually the glaring problems with the official narrative might be resolved, but what is plain is that Johnson and May have been premature and grossly irresponsible.

truepublica.org.uk_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

I will say a few words about the Russian Nerve Agent issue. I worked for several years at the Wellcome Research laboratories in London as a Senior Scientist in the Department of Physical Chemistry. My job, at the basic level was to help determine the structure and origin of pharmaceutical compounds. So, I am an expert in this area. I also carried out similar work at Queen Mary College London for my first PhD and synthesised complex organic chemicals. From that, I can say that the synthesis of a specific small organic chemical like the supposed Novichoks is not very difficult. Most sythetic organic chemists could knock up small quantities of the 234 compound, given the structure. Mainly, I can say that there is no way that the compound that was detected in the Skripal attack could be traced to a Russian laboratory (or any laboratory) by any lab unless the lab already had a sample known to come from the Russian laboratory (or the source laboratory). The determination and identification methods mainly depend on mass spectrometric fragmentation patterns, and include the spectrum of stray molecular fragments from impurities associated with the synthesis route. This is how we located Patent jumping, and we took this evidence into the courts. All chemists know this, and that is why the Porton head said what he said, as any chemist would have been able to raise this issue and show that he was lying, if he said anything else. It is basic physical chemistry. So, the new headline in the Times, about a secret Russian laboratory is also bogus. What is also clear is that the mass spectrum of the A234 compound was put on the NIST database in 1998 by a worker from the USA chemical warfare laboratory. I therefore conclude that this whole affair is a tissue of lies and misdirection, rather like the WMD Iraq scenario.

Russia still considered prime suspect
Sergei Skripal and Maltese journalist Caruana Galizia both investigating Cambridge Analytica/SCL
Both Sergei and Yulia Skripal have connections with Malta
Russian whistleblower – and Caruana contact – Maria Efimova handed herself in to Greek police on hearing of Skripal attack, in spite of warrants for her arrest and risk of extradition
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie claims predecessor poisoned in Kenya
Govt claim that Russia is only plausible suspect doesn’t stand up
The Establishment and its media estate continue to perform contortions to defend the lying Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

These contortions have even gone as far as stretching years-old ‘news’ to claim that the government has identified the specific laboratory where the Salisbury toxin – which according to Cornell University chemistry professor David Collum is so simple that any number of commercial labs could make it – was produced.

However, the consensus – and the government’s line – has been that Russia had the most reason to attack Sergei Skripal.

salisbury protect.jpeg
Work to clear up the Salisbury toxin
That has already been challenged, with Irish newspapers in particular pointing out that, having exchanged Skripal with the UK in return for its own agents, Russia might stand to lose out on future exchanges if it targeted the subject of a previous one.

But on balance the lack of solid evidence pointing to Russia hasn’t meant they weren’t the most likely suspects.

Daphne Caruana Galizia

dcgw.png
Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and the scene of her murder
However, it shouldn’t pass without comment that Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia – murdered by a car bomb – is known to have been investigating Cambridge Analytica, the firm at the centre of the huge Facebook data scandal and exposed by Channel 4 News discussing dirty tricks to swing election campaigns – as Labour MP Ben Bradshaw raised in a Commons debate. She was also investigating its parent company SCL.

Caruana Galizia also had connections to another Russian, whistleblower and alleged embezzler Maria Efimova – who handed herself over to Greek police after hearing about the Salisbury poisoning, in spite of warrants outstanding for her arrest. Maltese media had even claimed that Efimova was Caruana Galizia’s source for information on a company she was investiga_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Thank GOD the CIA have arrived to save the day, now Britain is safe once more from those pesky Russians... Murdoch has been right at the heart of this story, privileged access, like Wednesday's Porton Down interview, from the start.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal offered new identities with CIA help
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sergei-and-yulia-skripal-offered-ne w-identities-with-cia-help-ztf896rnj
Poisoned daughter refuses to meet Russians
Tim Shipman and Richard Kerbaj
April 8 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Yulia and Sergei Skripal: injuries mean they ‘would likely never be the same again’
Yulia and Sergei Skripal: injuries mean they ‘would likely never be the same again’
REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Sergei and Yulia Skripal will be offered new identities and a new life in America in an attempt to protect them from further murder attempts.

Intelligence officials at MI6 have had discussions with their counterparts in the CIA about resettling the victims of the Salisbury poisoning. “They will be offered new identities,” a senior Whitehall figure said.

Senior sources revealed both victims were conscious and would soon begin helping investigators with their inquiries into the nerve agent attack on March 4. Yulia, 33, a Russian citizen, has rejected demands by the Russian embassy in London that it provides her and her father with consular support — a move that has convinced British officials she might move to the West permanently.

The details emerged as Boris launched a blistering attack on the Labour leader accusing Corbyn of 'playing Putin's game.'

Dr Busby says a few words about the Russian Nerve Agent issue. He speaks as an expert in this area. Chris worked for several years at the famous Wellcome Research laboratories in Beckenham, London as a Senior Scientist in the Department of Physical Chemistry. His job, at the basic level, was to help determine the structure and origin of pharmaceutical compounds. So, he is an expert in this area. He also carried out similar work at Queen Mary College London for his first PhD and synthesised complex organic chemicals. From that, he relates that the synthesis of a specific small organic chemical like the supposed Novichoks is not very difficult. Most sythetic organic chemists could knock up small quantities of the 234 compound, given the structure. Mainly, there is no way that the compound that was detected in the Skripal attack could be traced to a Russian laboratory (or any laboratory) by any lab unless the lab already had a sample known to come from the Russian laboratory (or the source laboratory). The determination and identification methods mainly depend on mass spectrometric fragmentation patterns, and include the spectrum of stray molecular fragments from impurities associated with the synthesis route. This is how Wellcome located Patent jumping, and took this evidence ( from Busby and colleagues) into the courts. All chemists know this, and that is why the Porton head said what he said, as any chemist would have been able to raise this issue and show that he was lying, if he said anything else. It is basic physical chemistry. So, the new headline in the Times, about a secret Russian laboratory is also bogus. What is also clear is that the mass spectrum of the A234 compound was put on the NIST database in 1998 by a worker from the USA chemical warfare laboratory. Chris therefore concludes that this whole affair is a tissue of lies and misdirection, rather like the WMD Iraq scenario and is aimed at creating a war with Russia that no one can win and where all life will lose. Why is this being done? Because the only way for the rich and powerful to escape the coming US Economic catastrophe caused by the destruction of the petrodollar is to pull the house down and hope to escape in the general confusion and disaster from the wreckage._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Published on Friday, 06 April 2018 23:00
TonyGoslingWho was responsible for what happened on the 4th of March in Salisbury, UK? The British government rushed to judgement and blamed Vladimir Putin, as if following the script of a "carefully-constructed drama" (John Pilger) designed to persuade the UK people of Russia's guilt. But how careful a construction was it? And who else might more plausibly be considered the drama's author?

During this ongoing "house-moving season" TMR takes the opportunity to share a thought-provoking conversation between UK journalists Martin Summers and Tony Gosling on the recent Salisbury Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, followed by a TMR interview with Tony Gosling giving further background and interpretation.

Julian Charles: Hello everybody, Julian Charles here of themindrenewed.com coming to you as usual from the depths of the Lancashire countryside here in the UK. And welcome to another one of my slightly unusual productions during this time in which I am involved in a couple of house moves. The first one is over, that of my parents, but in a few days from now we’re going to be experiencing our own uprooting as our belongings are packed onto the removals lorry and shifted just a few miles down the road, actually to be next door to my parents. That's quite an amazing thing to have worked out, which means, of course, we’re going to be able to help them out in various ways much more easily than before, and my mum and dad will be able to see more of their grandchildren than ever before. So, a blessing in many ways. And indeed—and you will expect me to say this, and I believe it—a providential turn of events.

So, as I said before, during this time I’m using this as an opportunity to do some different things: the first was "A House Move Diary" last time. (If you haven’t heard that, of course I recommend you go and listen to it. A lot of people have contacted me to say how much they enjoyed that, so thank you to all of you who did that – that’s very encouraging.)

This is the second of those rather unusual podcasts: a sharing of a very interesting conversation between Martin Summers and Tony Gosling on the Politics Show of BCFM Radio (Bristol Community FM) that was broadcast just over a week ago on the 16th March 2018 discussing the Sergei Skripal affair in Salisbury, UK, on the 4th March, and the subsequent political fallout of that event, followed by a chat that I had with Tony Gosling a few days later on Wednesday evening late at night. That basically added more background to that story (Tony having worked as a BBC reporter in the past in that very area of Salisbury) and explored some of the persistent and very serious questions that surround that whole, I think, highly suspicious story.

And the reason why I’m doing this is because, like I should think the vast majority of people that listen to TMR, I felt deeply insulted by the mainstream media coverage of that event and many of the statements coming from the British government. In fact, as I said to Tony before we recorded our chat, I have quite similar feelings about this as I did seven years ago about the whole Osama bin Laden assassination story. I found that story so absurd, and I still do, that I felt deeply insulted that anyone should expect me to believe it. And I feel much the same about this.

To my mind it makes no sense that Vladimir Putin should have ordered this to take place. There are a million and one ways to kill a person, so I am informed. Some of them are very difficult to trace back to the perpetrator. If Putin wanted to kill Sergei Skripal: first, he could have done it while Skripal was in custody in Russia; second, he could have done it in a quiet way that wouldn’t lead to international outrage; and third, he surely wouldn’t have used a red-flag chemical weapon on British soil, which of course plays directly into the Weapons-of Mass-Destruction meme that’s been so pressed against Assad.

If he did it, he would certainly have done it in such a way as not to give his geopolitical opponents the opportunity to whip up fear and score propaganda victories against him. I think that to believe that he did it, you have to believe that Putin is mad or that he’s stupid, and I don’t think he’s either; I see no evidence of this. I mean, I’m sure that he’s as hard as nails – and I wouldn’t want to cross him – but I don’t think he’s mad or stupid.

As to the explanation that I’ve heard that this is some kind of warning to would-be traitors – "betray us and die!" — if you work for intelligence agencies, surely you don’t need a warning like that! I mean, you know the score already: you sell secrets, you may well end up in a place that you don’t want to end up. So I find the immediate pinning of this on Russia insulting. Obviously to the Russians it’s insulting, but I mean to me as a consumer of media. So I wanted to respond to this in some way. But time limitations being such as they are, I thought, well I can’t schedule an interview, so I decided to find some good resource to share, as I do from time to time. And I found it in this conversation that I’m going to play today, but that then led to an interview anyway—unplanned, indeed unprepared for—but an interview nonetheless.

So, here they are: first, Martin Summers and Tony Gosling in discussion on BCFM Radio, followed by my late night chat with Tony a few days later. Let me say, as I always do, the fact that I’m playing this does not mean that I necessarily agree with every word that is said. That’s not the point; the point is that this is investigative journalism, which we witness all too rarely these days, asking real questions that need to be raised.

Martin Summers: Well, I think what’s very clear is that it ought to be obvious to everybody that one of the suspects in this case must be Western Intelligence, or other third-party intelligence services, for example Ukrainian Intelligence. And the fact that the Russians have been tried, convicted and found guilty all in the space of forty-eight hours ought to raise questions in everybody’s minds. How can the British State establish all of these facts in that sort of time scale? They can’t really. To my mind this fits a pattern of Western Intelligence provocation, which we can discuss at some length if we’ve got time. The fact is that in the past Western Intelligence has been engaged in exactly this kind of provocation. So, for example— I’ll just make one point—the anthrax, which was circulated inside the United States after the 9/11 attacks (the facts are very clear, and anybody can check them online), was traced back to Fort Dietrich in Maryland, which is the US equivalent of Porton Down, so it definitely came from inside the structure, no doubt about it.

TG: But can chemical weapons be traced back in the same way as biological weapons can?

MS: Well, I don’t know, and we’re all waiting to hear. Of course the Russians quite rightly asked for a sample of what had been discovered, affirming that they would co-operate with any investigation as they were equally in the dark, not having signed off on it, and said that as they had no hand in it. They were as keen to get to the bottom of it as anyone else. There are mechanisms for getting to the bottom of it. About two years ago, there were celebrations in Russia after they’d got rid of their entire chemical warfare stockpile and were given a clean bill of health.

TG: But, can we trust them?

MS: No, not necessarily, but the point is that that was an internationally supervised deal, whereby the Russians agreed to get rid of their chemical warfare stockpile, and we agreed to get rid of ours. But as a result of this particular incident, Porton Down is to get a massive increase in expenditure and infrastructure. I have to question that, and someone ought to ask the question in Parliament, or make a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request on the government’s decision to expand Porton Down, which has been pushed forward on the back of it.

MS: Yes, indeed, and was that decided since this incident, or was it already in the pipeline before the incident, or does it have something to do with the incident?

TG: Yes, I would suggest that it does.

MS: Well, alright Sherlock Holmes, you might be right there.

TG: Porton Down is saying nothing really about the origin of this. In fact, what the former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, is saying through his contacts in the Foreign Office: “I have now received information from a well-placed Foreign & Commonwealth Office source that Porton Down scientists are not able to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture, and have been resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so. Porton Down would only sign up to a formulation of a ‘type’ originally developed by Russia.” Could this forty-eight million pounds be a bribe to get the Porton Down people to play ball?

MS: If we may just do a thought experiment here for a minute. If this is a Western Intelligence come-on, which I suspect it may be, there’s a possibility that a group like the Ukrainians may have their fingers in it. Don’t forget they used to be part of the Soviet Union as well. Of course, Craig Murray used to be British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and that was where the equivalent of Porton Down in the Soviet Union was located, but was subsequently dismantled during the Yeltsin era by western scientists from the US and elsewhere when everything that was there was taken away. So, what the British need to do, if they want to make this stick, is to make whatever they’ve found available to others to try and ascertain its provenance.

TG: Martin, it’s already sticking, and has stuck really, because Trump and Macron, and the EU effectively, have all come in on Britain’s side saying: You’re absolutely right, expel those diplomats.

MS: Yes, and so have some right-wing Labour MPs, but I’d say none of them has any evidence to prove it one way or another. All we’ve got is the word of the British government and the word of British Intelligence, who have got a track record going back to the 1940s of behaving in a provocative fashion. (I mentioned earlier the example of the anthrax in the US that killed six people after 9/11, which definitely came from Fort Dietrich—definitely came from within the structure, and yet no one inside the structure was ever punished.) Therefore, we can presume that they will carry on doing the same sort of things.

TG: Look, is this Novichok weapon likely to have been at Porton Down, which is only ten minutes’ drive away from Salisbury?

MS: Well, what the Russians are saying is that the only way they could have ascertained that it was Novichok would be if they have samples of their own to compare it against. Of course the Russian chemical warfare capability was comprehensively dismantled during the Yeltsin era, and virtually all of it brought back to the West. As I pointed out, the Russians agreed to destroy all their stuff and it was subsequently dismantled under the supervision of the Court of International . . .

TG: And have Russia’s chemical weapons been destroyed?

MS: Yes, of course, but ours haven’t. Porton Down hasn’t been dismantled, has it?

TG: And neither has that of the United States. The program of destruction of US chemical weapons has still five years to run.

MS: Yes, well the Russians got ahead of the game and got rid of them all. The point is that what the Russians have been concentrating on is developing fourth-generation nuclear weapons, the stuff that really matters.

TG: So, in other words, chemical weapons can’t be used to take out military targets; they’re much more dangerous to civilians?

MS: No, I think that what’s . . .

TG: ... has anything to do with it because, as it was revealed the other week, Russian weaponry includes nuclear-powered cruise missiles that have been developed to take out hard targets.

MS: Well, they’re there to take out any target you like. I mean, let’s face it, a nuclear bomb is not very discriminating. The point about chemical weapons is that this whole trope of Weapons of Mass Destruction – we all know the phrase “Weapons of Mass Destruction” – now the reason that was pushed in the run-up to the First and Second Gulf Wars is because it blurs the line between nuclear weapons, which are nuclear, and conventional weapons. Chemical warfare is effectively just enhanced conventional warfare. You can kill quite a lot of people with chemical weapons, but not that many. They were found to be pretty useless in the First World War—they didn’t work that well—and they are not comparable with nuclear weapons; they’re just not. But by using the phrase “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, you make them sound as though they are.

TG: A chemical weapon could kill millions of people.

MS: In theory.

TG: Surely a bullet can’t do that?

MS: No, but a nuclear weapon can.

TG: Also, biological weapons could—effectively, if it was the right kind of thing—kill the entire population of the planet.

MS: Well, I’m quite sure that the Iranians still have a biological chemical warfare program because they don’t have nuclear weapons.

TG: Biological weapons are also much more indiscriminate. Anyway, Israel also has extensive stocks of chemical weapons, but has always refused to declare any of them to the chemical weapons regulators. They’re not a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, nor a member of the OPCW, so Israel signed in 1993, but refused to ratify as this would mean inspection and destruction of their chemical weapons.

MS: Well, If I were a Wiltshire police officer, I would suggest that the Israelis could be one of the suspects in this case, because their policy in Syria has been completely frustrated by Putin and the Russians. And they’ve got a vested interest in stirring trouble between Britain and Russia. Also, the Russians are just about to have a presidential election. In another universe they would be congratulated for having the third, relatively free, election in their history after hundreds of years of authoritarianism, but instead of being congratulated, they’re being vilified. And, of course, Putin is going to win; he’s going to win handsomely.

TG: Martin, they’re saying that this is an attempt to interfere in the Russian elections.

MS: Yes, that’s how it is perceived in Russia, because they know that Putin’s going to win. Putin’s win will be very embarrassing for the West.

TG: And there’s also the death of Nikolai Glushkov as well, a friend of Boris Berezovsky. Now can we talk about that a little? Glushkov was actually involved very much in working for Berezovsky at Aeroflot. Aeroflot is absolutely key to understanding this competition between Putin and Berezovsky, because once Putin got into power, Berezovsky thought Putin was going to be his little puppet and do what he wanted, but he revived this old Aeroflot case. Now, think about who these oligarchs are. Berezovsky was running the NTV Channel, the biggest private channel in Russia...

SM: ...Yes, he was like a Berlusconi figure...

TG: ... and also running Aeroflot. So what was happening was that the whole nation under Yeltsin, the drunken President, was being asset-stripped, and Berezovsky was one of the oligarchs that was doing that asset-stripping. He was asset-stripping the national airline. Once Putin got into power, he revived this old case, saying: “Actually, Berezovsky, you’ve got some questions to answer about what’s happened to our national airline.” Then Berezovsky had to flee the country, and he came to London. Now, was this guy, who has been found dead, someone that knew all about what happened there?

SM: Yeah, well Berezovsky himself of course was found dead in his Surrey mansion some years ago, and the local coroner wouldn’t suggest that it was a suicide.

TG: It does make you wonder, doesn’t it, if these people have been killed by someone who didn’t want what they knew to come out in public?

SM: Yes, what you’ve got to remember is that these opposition figures to Putin—like this chap Berezovsky...

TG: ...Nokolai Grushkov to just remind you of his name...

MS: ...and Kordokovsky, who was sent to prison and then released—these people are big-style criminals; they are gangsters. The idea that Russia is an oligarchic state in a sense is true. But what Putin has done is to discipline the oligarchy, particularly the oligarchs of Jewish origin, many of whom have joint Israeli-Russian citizenship, and were basically at one stage pulling Russia into Israel’s orbit.

TG: So the most draconian or ruthless elements of the Russian mafia, shall we say, are in London, and some of them are actually funding the Conservative Party.

MS: They’re also opposed to Putin; that’s why they’re in London. Berezovsky was getting more and more frustrated because, of course, he couldn’t get the West to back him. He tried to...

TG: Didn’t he have a close relationship with the Duke of Kent, the Queen’s cousin, who is also head of the Freemasons?

MS: Don’t forget that these people are quite capable of murdering each other in order to make Russia look bad. I know that many people listening will think that that’s a preposterous idea, but it’s not. If you knew anything about Russia in the light of the "without-rules era", you would come to realize that all these people are very, very gangster-ish and they’re quite capable of killing each other over various disputes that they’ve got among themselves.

TG: It’s handy in a way that this guy is no longer around, because it makes it more difficult to dig up all this stuff about what happened with the privatisation of Aeroflot—the asset-stripping of Russia under Yeltsin.

MS: Well, don’t forget that this guy’s 68 and he’s died of a heart attack, so it’s not necessarily the case that he was murdered by anyone at all. Berezovsky, on the other hand, was strangled. According to police reports, there’s evidence of compression on his neck. Ok, but that still doesn’t mean that the Russian State has done this. These people are gangsters, and they’ve got enemies. Don’t forget, you’ve got to see this in the context of all the lies that have been told by Western Intelligence about Russian policy over the last five years. For instance, it has just been revealed in a court case held in Kiev that during the coup in the Ukraine, the demonstrators in Maidan Square were not shot by police under the then regime of Yanukovich, but by hired mercenaries from Georgia, who were actually given instructions by US military personnel.

TG: [Someone] was mentioning the coup in the Ukraine on BBC Question Time last night and getting pilloried, as was Jeremy Corbyn for questioning what the government was doing over this Russian-Salisbury case.

MS: Then you can see what the motivation is for Western Intelligence to carry out this scam: it puts Corbyn on the back foot; it means that we can ask for more money for the Military Industrial Complex, £48 million more for Porton Down; it pulls Britain into line with Trump. I’m quite sure that will be the assessment of Russian Intelligence. They will know whether they were involved or not. Think, why would Russian Intelligence, when they’re just about to have a successful national election in which Putin is going to win, come to Britain and kill somebody and make it so obvious that they did it and get the blame? That would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it?

TG: Ok, so what you’re saying is that this is psychological warfare. Let’s have a listen now to one of the initial statements by Theresa May about this whole business, and the reaction by former psychological warfare officer in the US army, Scott Bennett.

Theresa May (UK Prime Minister):

"It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok. Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defense, Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent, and would still be capable of doing so, Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations, and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations, the Government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal."

Scott Bennett:

"I think this was orchestrated by the UK government, possibly using other assets such as the CIA and Mossad, because Russia certainly doesn’t gain from anything like this. And to summon the Russians and say: "Answer which of these two is correct: either you did this against us, or someone else got your material and did this?", the Russians need to say: “No, there’s a third option, and that is that the United Kingdom has designed a psychological operation to manipulate its own public to distract the United Kingdom away from the MI6 Christopher Steele agent that wrote a false Russian dossier to undermine Donald Trump, and the British role in that, as well as the British role in the Al Nusra chemical weapons that has just come out, which Russia and Syria have said all along had nothing to do with Syria or Russia, but everything to do with the United Kingdom and the United States.”

TG: What’s he talking about there? I wasn’t aware about this business of the British in some way being involved, and maybe the Americans, in chemical weapons in Syria too?

MS: Well, that’s a key point: the Al Nusra Front. Scott Bennett’s a former US psychological warfare officer, but Seymour Hersh is a senior US journalist, if not the senior US journalist; he’s got several Pulitzer prizes and so on. He was the one that exposed the My Lai Massacre. He wrote an article about the chemical weapons attack in Ghouta some years ago, which was blamed on the Assad government. And he pointed out that it was not only not the Assad government that carried it out, it was carried out by the Al Nusra Front—which is Al Queda—and that the sarin used for the attack came from Libya and had been supplied to Al Nusra by Western Intelligence. So not only are the Russians not guilty in Syria, we are the guilty party. And when Obama was saying there was a "red line" here if people use chemical weapons against their own people, or people in general, it’s actually Western Intelligence who are the guilty party. Also, the White Helmets, who have been the source of much of this scurrilous information, who are themselves funded by the British tax payer to the tune of millions of pounds. You’ve got people sleeping on the streets, but we’ve got people running around in Syria doing PR for Al Queda as part of MI6. As I said in the first hour, MI6 in places like the Middle East is not regarded as some kind of benevolent organisation; it’s actually regarded as extremely tricky, ruthless and not very pleasant.

TG: Love her or hate her, Prime Minister Theresa May made a statement on Wednesday all about this. This is about four minutes long, but you can have a listen now to what she had to say, and I’ll ask you to comment afterwards, Martin, about the so-called Russian assassins of Salisbury.

Theresa May:

"There is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr. Skripal and his daughter, and for threatening the lives of other British citizens in Salisbury, including Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey. This represents an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the United Kingdom. And, as I set out on Monday, it has taken place against the backdrop of a well-established pattern of Russian State aggression across Europe and beyond. It must therefore be met with a full and robust response beyond the actions we have already taken since the murder of Mr. Litvinenko, and to counter this pattern of Russian aggression elsewhere. As a discussion in this House on Monday made clear, it is essential that we now come together with our allies to defend our security, to stand up for our values, and to send a clear message to those who would seek to undermine them.

This morning I chaired a further meeting of the Security Council where we agreed immediate actions to dismantle the Russian espionage network in the UK, urgent work to develop new powers to tackle all forms of hostile state activity, and to ensure that those seeking to carry out such activity cannot enter the UK, and additional steps to suspend all planned high-level contacts between the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation. Let me start with the immediate actions:

Mr. Speaker, the House will recall that following the murder of Mr. Litvinenko, the UK expelled four diplomats. Under the Vienna Convention the United Kingdom will now expel twenty-three Russian diplomats, who have been identified as undeclared intelligence officers. They have just one week to leave. This will be the single biggest expulsion for over thirty years, and it reflects the fact that this is not the first time that the Russian State has acted against our country.

Through these expulsions we will fundamentally degrade Russian intelligence capability in the UK for years to come, and if they seek to rebuild it, we will prevent them from doing so.

Second, we will urgently develop proposals for new legislative powers to harden our defences against all forms of hostile state activity. This will include the addition of a targeted power to detain those suspected of hostile state activity at the UK border. This power is currently only permitted in relation to those suspected of terrorism, and I have asked the Home Secretary to consider whether there is a need for new counter-espionage powers to clamp down on the full spectrum of hostile activities of foreign agents in our country.

Mr. Speaker, as I set out on Monday, we will also table a government amendment to the Sanctions Bill to strengthen our powers to impose sanctions in response to the violations of human rights. In doing so, we will play our part in an international effort to punish those responsible for the sorts of abuses suffered by Sergei Magnitsky.

And I hope with all the measures that I am setting out that this will command cross-party support.

Mr. Speaker, we will also make full use of existing powers to enhance our efforts to monitor and track the intentions of those travelling to the UK, who could be engaged in activity that threatens the security of the UK and of our allies. So, we will increase checks on private flights, customs and freight. We will freeze Russian State assets wherever we have the evidence that they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents, and, led by the National Crime Agency, we will continue to bring all the capabilities of UK law enforcement to bear against serious criminals and corrupt elites. There is no place for these people or their money in our country.

Mr Speaker, let me be clear, while our response must be robust, it must also remain true to our values as a liberal democracy that believes in the rule of law. Many Russians have made this country their home, abide by our laws, and make an important contribution to our country, which we must continue to welcome. But, to those who seek to do us harm, my message is simple: you are not welcome here.

MS: Unlike the Saudis, of course, for whom the red carpet will be rolled out.

TG: Well, it was, wasn’t it, last week?

MS: Even though we know that various people were tortured to death by Mohamed bin Salman in the previous weeks before he arrived.

TG: Also, we know that they are the main funders of Islamic extremism in Britain.

MS: Indeed, that’s right, because there was a government report that showed they were the main funders of extremist madrasas in the country, but we’re not allowed to hear that, because that might upset the government.

TG: One thing that strikes me about what she’s saying there is this Rush-to-Judgement, and these are very extreme measures.

MS: The point I would make about this is: “Where is the evidence that the Russian State was involved?

TG: She’ll say: “We can’t tell you, because of national security.”

MS: Well, I would say that that’s not good enough, especially when we’ve got evidence, going back decades, of Western Intelligence engaging in this kind of provocation. I’ll mention for the umpteenth time Fernando Imposimato, the Head of the Italian Supreme Court who died last year, who uncovered the fact that Western Intelligence was involved in terrorism, including provocational terrorism like kidnapping and killing the Italian Prime Minister (Aldo Moro) and pretending that it had been done by the Red Brigades when it was in fact orchestrated by NATO Intelligence—by MI6. If they can do that, they can also kill a couple of Russian nobodies who have crossed the line in Salisbury, although they haven’t died yet.

TG: She also mentions Litvinenko there. How is that connected?

MS: In Litvinenko’s case, the Russians have always maintained that they didn’t kill him either. He was a Russian agent, but he also wrote a book Blowing up Russia. And of course, in that book, which I’m quite sure Theresa May hasn’t read, Litvinenko said that Putin and others that are running Russia were involved in the Moscow Ryazan Apartment bombs of 9/99—September 1999—when hundreds of people were killed by these no-warning bombs, supposedly by the Chechens, but in actual fact carried out by the FSB as a means of consolidating the power of Boris Yeltsin in his second term when Putin was the Prime Minister. What’s interesting about the book is that Litvinenko says: I know this happened because I and my boss Berezovsky were involved in these bombings with Putin, and therefore Putin’s guilty. At the same time, these people were given asylum in Britain because they were used as a mechanism for getting back at Putin, once Putin had double-crossed the CIA and MI6. But, of course, all these people are expendable. When the police investigated the Litvinenko case, they found polonium everywhere. I mean if you’re going to kill somebody, there are less detectable ways. Chavez, who died of a very, very rare cancer, which nobody could put a finger on, was probably murdered by the US.

TG: So, for example, it could appear that Litvinenko was simply the man that knew too much, who might actually start to talk and finger Berezovsky?

MS: If I were a police officer investigating, I would suggest that Berezovsky was the prime suspect, because he was getting desperate, and Berezovsky was pushing the idea that we’ve got to start using this involvement in the Moscow bombing against Putin: We know he did it. But, of course, the western powers are basically saying to Berezovsky that we can’t start accusing Putin of bombing Moscow...

TG: ... Because that would let the cat out of the bag...

MS: ... because that would let the cat out of the bag for what we did in Bologna, for what we did on 9/11 and all the rest of it.

TG: And 7/7.

MS: And 7/7. Basically, virtually all these incidents are in fact western, not Russian, intelligence come-ons. As I said on Russia Today the other week, the real scandal here is not that the Russians have been interfering in western elections and trying to steer things, it’s that Western Intelligence has been interfering. Look at the way in which this has played out: within 24 hours the whole raft of what the Military Industrial Complex wanted in the West has been achieved on the back of an incident where it hasn’t even been proved that there was any nerve agent. We’ve only got the word of government, who won’t provide the nerve agent. It could be that the whole thing is just theatre. That’s a possibility.

TG: Ok, that wasn’t all that Theresa May had to say; there were some more measures that she talked about. This bit is a lot shorter. We may hear from you again after this, Martin.

Theresa May:

Mr. Speaker, let me return to our bilateral relationship. As I said on Monday, we’ve had a very simple approach to Russia: “Engage but beware!” And I continue to believe it is not in our national interest to break off all dialogue between the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, but, in the aftermath of this appalling act against our country, this relationship cannot not be the same. So, we will suspend all planned high-level bilateral contacts between the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation. This includes revoking the invitation to Foreign Minister Lavrov to pay a reciprocal visit to the UK, and confirming that there will be no attendance by Ministers or indeed members of the Royal Family at this summer’s World Cup in Russia. Finally, Mr. Speaker, we will deploy a range of tools from across the full breadth of our national security apparatus in order to counter the threats of hostile state activity. While I have set out some of these measures today, members on all sides will understand that there are some that cannot be shared publicly for reasons of national security. And, of course, there are other measures we stand ready to deploy at any time should we face further Russian provocation.

Mr. Speaker, none of the actions we take are intended to damage legitimate activity or prevent contacts between our populations. We have no disagreement with the people of Russia, who have been responsible for so many great achievements throughout their history. Many of us looked at a post Soviet Russia with hope; we wanted a better relationship and it is tragic that President Putin has chosen to act in this way.

But we will not tolerate the threat to the life of British peoples and others on British soil, nor will we tolerate such a flagrant breach of Russia’s international obligations.

TG: So, does she think she has definite evidence it happened or not, because she’s saying both things? She’s saying we think that Putin was behind it, and then she’s saying also that he definitely was behind it at the same time.

MS: Well, in other words, they basically haven’t got any evidence that they’re prepared to share with us, so we’re entitled to presume that they may be lying. The idea that the British government doesn’t lie about stuff like this—when there are examples of Western Intelligence involvement in the Bologna bombing and in West Belfast, and in Syria where the chemical weapons attack was carried out by factions aided by and with the support of Western Intelligence, including our own—would produce a hollow laugh.

TG: You can hear her turning the pages there. Who writes these speeches for her? She’s reading this off a piece of paper.

MS: They’re written by the securicrats who run this country. Dearlove, who used to head MI6, was quoted in The Telegraph or The Times the other week saying: “Corbyn’s unfit to be Prime Minister, he wouldn’t pass a vetting.” So, somebody who used to be head of our intelligence services presumes to decide who can and who can’t be Prime Minister, and that’s because they have far too much power. They’ve always had far too much power.

TG: Anyway, let’s have a listen now to Jeremy Corbyn—Leader of the Opposition (Labour Party)—for his response to Theresa May’s statement on this.

Jeremy Corbyn:

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of her statement, and to echo absolutely her words about the service of our emergency services. The attack in Salisbury was an appalling act of violence. Nerve agents are abominable if used in any war; it is utterly reckless to use them in a civilian environment. This attack in Britain has concerned our allies in the European Union, NATO, and the UN, and their words of solidarity have strengthened our position diplomatically.

Our response as a country must be guided by the rule of law, support for international agreements and respect for human rights. So, when it comes to the use of chemical weapons on British soil, it is essential that the government works with the United Nations to strengthen its chemical weapons monitoring system and involves the Office of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The Prime Minister said on Monday either this was a direct act by the Russian State or the Russian Government lost control of their potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent, and allowed it to get into the hands of others. Our response must be both decisive and proportionate, and based on clear evidence.

If the government believes that there is still a possibility that Russia negligently lost control of a military-grade nerve agent, what action has been taken through the OPCW with our allies?

I welcome the fact the police are working with the OPCW, and has the Prime Minister taken the necessary steps under the Chemical Weapons Convention to make a formal request for evidence from the Russian Government under Article 9.2?

How has she responded to the Russian government’s request for a sample of the agent used in the Salisbury attack to run its own tests?

Has high-resolution trace analysis been run on a sample of the nerve agent, and has that revealed any evidence as to the location of its production or the identity of its perpetrators?

And, can the Prime Minister update the House on what conversations, if any, she’s had with the Russian government? And while . . .

[Heckling in the background]

And while suspending planned high-level contacts, does the Prime Minister agree that it is essential to maintain a robust dialogue with Russia in the interests of our own and wider international security?

With many countries, Mr. Speaker, speaking out alongside us, the circumstances demand that we build an international consensus to address the use of chemical weapons. We should urge our international allies to join us and call on Russia to reveal without delay full details of its chemical weapons program to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

It is, as we on these benches have expressed before, a matter of huge regret that our country’s diplomatic capacity has been stripped back with cuts of 25% in the last five years.

[Background heckling and shouting]

It is, Mr. Speaker …

The Speaker (of the House of Commons):

The Rt. Hon gentleman must be heard. There will be adequate opportunity for colleagues on both sides of the House to put questions.

[Indistinct interjection by the Foreign Secretary]

The Speaker:

Members must be heard.

Jeremy Corbyn:

I couldn’t understand a word of what the Foreign Secretary just said, Mr. Speaker, but his behaviour demeans his office.

[Background heckling and shouting]

It is in moments such as these that governments realise how vital strong diplomacy and political pressure are for our security and national interests. The measures we take have to be effective, not just for the long-term security of our citizens, but to secure a world free of chemical weapons.

TG: Now, the obvious question here is that surely a sample of this should be sent either to the OPCW, or to the Russians for the Russians to say they know where this came from, or whatever.

MS: That’s exactly what the Russians said, and that there was a procedure to follow. They stated that they were perfectly happy to co-operate since it was not in their interests to have people killed needlessly. Don’t forget the Russians were adjudicated to have got rid of their chemical weapons stockpile under agreements made during the Yeltsin era, and were given a clean bill of health celebrated by a big party to follow. And don’t forget, it was Putin who put pressure on Assad to get rid of his chemical weapons. Now, it’s possible that somewhere they’re hiding some, but we’re not hiding ours; we’re actually expanding our chemical weapons facility at Porton Down by spending another forty-eight million quid on it.

TG: Ok, what about The World Cup? She talked about that as well.

MS: One of my friends was suggesting that if these big wigs don’t want to go to The World Cup, we should have a lottery to have free tickets for those who do want to go.

TG: Are we going to see ultimately a boycott of The World Cup?

MS: Well, the Russians may turn round and say the only team that’s not going to be allowed to come here is the English team, and you can suck on that!

TG: Would that be a good move?

MS: I don’t think they’d do that, but they could.

TG: That would just alienate the population, surely?

MS: Well, exactly. If I were the Russians, I wouldn’t even expel British diplomats at this stage, but the problem is that you’ve got public opinion in Russia. Public opinion in Russia is that they are being scapegoated. They feel that they’d never get a fair crack at the whip, and that everything they do is wrong; it doesn’t matter how they behave, they’re always going to be accused.

TG: Most recent on this subject, I suppose, is the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who was talking here in Bristol yesterday up at Rolls Royce. Before he became a MP, he used to sell fireplaces.

Gavin Williamson (UK Secretary of Defence):

What we will do is we will look at how Russia responds to what we have done. It is absolutely atrocious and outrageous what Russia did in Salisbury. We have responded to that. Frankly, Russia should go away, it should shut up. But, if they do respond to the action that we have taken, we will consider it carefully, and we will look at our options, but it would be wrong to prejudge their response.

There is no doubt where this attack came from; it came from Russia. It is time for the whole country to unite behind the Prime Minister, give her our full support, make it clear as a nation that we stand together. That is what I believe when you sit in the House of Commons and you listen to the members of Parliament from all parties on the back benches, that is what they’re wanting to see: Britain standing together against this great threat, that is what we will do, that is the support we will offer the Prime Minister, that is what the nation wants to see us doing from all parties.

TG: On Twitter, somebody described him as a sort of sinister version of Frank Spencer. "Go away and shut up" doesn’t sound like very diplomatic language.

MS: Well, also, they’re saying we think the Russians did it, but then that’s elided into: they definitely did do it. Now, in actual, fact it’s not proven that they did, and of course the Russians are saying they didn’t.

TG: What they’re doing is conflating fact with speculation.

MS: Well, of course, they’re also trying to bully people into lying in Parliament. If you criticise us, then you’re somehow a traitor or whatever. Now, the obvious thing for the Russians to do, if they really want to hurt us, is to turn round to BP and say: “Right, you’ve got get out of our oil fields. Just go.”

TG: And is that going to happen?

MS: No, because what the Russians want is actually—and I’ve said this on RT where I’m a regular contributor, as you know, Tony...

TG: They’ve also talked about revoking their licence.

MS: Yes, but of course what they said to that is they’ll revoke the BBC’s licence in Russia. Everybody can go down this ‘tit for tat’ road, and it’s not likely. . .

TG: And is that likely to end in war?

MS: Well, it could easily do, because the RAF are overflying Syria at the moment with drones run from RAF Waddington killing Russian Military personnel.

TG: Now, in the background to all of this, you’ve got to ask yourself: why would anyone want war. It was fascinating speaking to a campaigner against space weapons and nuclear power in space—you can hear this on Dialect next Tuesday at noon here on BCFM— and he was explaining to me that the real fear in the US Military is that the Chinese and the Russians are catching up with the ability to destroy satellites in space. S so we’re kind of back at the old Cuban Missile Crisis stage in the 1960s, where we had a missile gap and the Russians were catching up with the Americans, and so the military were saying: Look, if we can have some sort of conflict now, we can actually deny space to the Chinese and to the Russians, but we need to do it now, because they’re catching up.

MS: Alright, well there’s quite a lot to unpack there. There wasn’t a missile gap, in fact; that was a come-on by the Military Industrial Complex. The fact of the matter is that Mutually-Assured Destruction is still there; that is what Putin’s speech was about the other week. They’ve been pushing missiles into Romania and Poland that are effectively first-strike missiles. When a …

TG: NATO, is it?

MS: Yes, when the Russians tried to do a similar thing in Cuba, the Americans went nuts, but Russia is being asked to tolerate that being pushed in their face. Before this incident, the Russians said that they had evidence that there was going to be another chemical weapons false-flag inside Eastern Ghouta, and that then was going to be used as an excuse for a military strike by NATO powers on the Syrian Military. And the Russians said don’t do that, because we will shoot your planes down. Without anybody wanting war, it could break out. Don’t forget, Hillary Benn, who was Shadow Foreign Secretary at the time, was pushing to go to war over the Ghouta chemical weapons attack, which Seymour Hersh, I think, has shown pretty comprehensively was carried out by the Al Nusra Front in league with the White Helmets, who are all working for NATO Intelligence. So, in actual fact, there is strong evidence of NATO using chemical weapons as part of provocation.

TG: Ok, what I’m talking about is this whole thing in space, because this is concerning. The US Military wants, as Donald Trump announced this week, a Space Force, which is like an Air Force in space, which I imagine is there to destroy Russian and Chinese satellites.

MS: Yes, but the thing is that the Russians and Chinese have known that they can’t really compete in satellite technology with the West, so what they’ve got are weapons able to shoot down satellites.

TG: What about these power cruise missiles, new technology that Putin announced. Are they a game-changer?

MS: They are a game-changer. The thing about the state-run arms industry in both China and Russia is that the state decides what it wants to produce and produces it. In the West, on the other hand, you have these various lobbies pushing for their stuff to be produced. For instance, the Porton Down people want chemical warfare and the Navy wants more aircraft carriers, even though aircraft carriers are finished. The Russians meanwhile are concentrating on the important stuff, so that if they, or their allies, are attacked (this is the important thing that Putin said) with any nuclear weapons, they will respond most forcefully in kind.

TG: So, what’s Theresa May’s role in all this rush to war?

MS: She is basically a puppet of the intelligence services. She was a puppet of the intelligence services when she was Home Secretary; she is very much an insider in their games, and they tell her what to think, and that’s what she thinks.

_________________________________________________

Julian Charles: Well, thanks very much, Tony, for allowing me to use that piece of investigative reporting with Martin Summers. And thanks for joining us now on TMR. You’ve said since then that there are various things you’d like to share with us: various developments that you sent me in a text message, particularly about this guy who recruited Sergei Skripal to sell Russian secrets, a man called Pablo Miller, and the fact that both Skripal and Miller have links to this chap called Christopher Steele of the company Orbis Intelligence (of course people will know that name because of Steele being the source for this famous Trump-Russia dossier). So, I’m interested to know what you think the connections are here between these various people and what the significance of all that is.

Tony Gosling: Well, before I answer that one, Julian, I would just like to say something about the fact that people are talking about this story all over the country, in pubs and supermarket cafes None of those sorts of conversations are making their way onto our television screens or into our radio stations. Occasionally maybe the odd phone-in, and that’s a very important way to get these things discussed.

Actually, there is no proper journalism going on with this story whatsoever. What’s happened is the opposite, a dissemination of lies and disinformation that haven’t been checked against reality, and which have been fed to journalists—presumably by Ministry of Defence Press Officers, Police Press Officers, Cabinet Office Press Officers—and then just regurgitated as fact, and reported as fact, with no checking of these facts by any of the journalists. So not only are they not asking questions in their own minds, they’re not going to the actual, supposed source of the story and checking.

Just to give you one example: there was a report that scores of people in Salisbury had also been subject to this nerve agent, and that they’d gone into the Salisbury District Hospital or surgeries in the area and been treated for nerve agent. Now this was disproven by the emergency medical doctors at Salisbury District Hospital. A letter was written to The Telegraph, or The Guardian, saying that nobody, apart from the initial three people, had been treated at all for any kind of nerve agent. So, it just beggars belief that when you’re reading something in the newspaper that tells you something about this story, particularly because it’s highly politically charged, that it may be just complete nonsense and an outright lie. You know the old phrase “fake news”, well this Novichok Salisbury story says more about the state of our press in Britain than it does almost about the story itself. It’s almost like the story kind of dissolves as you see another thing, and you think to yourself: “Well, this sounds like nonsense.”

JC: It is interesting though that John Pilger described it as “carefully crafted”. You’re saying it’s not carefully crafted at all.

TG: No, I think these are almost the sort of lies scribbled haphazardly on the back of an envelope. I worked as a reporter for the BBC for about eighteen months in Salisbury over the years 1992, ‘93 into ’94, roughly, for what they called the Salisbury Opt Out on Wiltshire Sound, which was the BBC station for Wiltshire—and still is, although it’s now called something else like BBC Wiltshire. They had an office in Salisbury and I worked there almost every day. The area itself is about as military as it’s possible to get. For a start, Salisbury Plains, a massive part of Wiltshire right next to Salisbury, is the main UK military training area for all sorts of types of forces, including things like the Fleet Air Arm, whose aircraft use it for bombing practice, or liaison with the ground for example, in what they probably call Close Air Support, or something like that, where aircraft are supporting troops on the ground. There are whole areas, quite large and fenced-off around Balford and Tidworth, which are totally and utterly military, and which you can’t go into. Wiltshire is about as militarised as it is possible to be with Salisbury Plains dominating the county. If you live around there, it’s actually quite nice as you can go there at Easter and Christmas time and over the New Year when you’re actually allowed to drive through. If you see any red flags, turn back.

JC: You can almost not avoid bumping into Porton Down as well, can you? How many miles away is that from Salisbury?

TG: Well, it’s very close. Let me just finish what I was saying. There is actually a church in the abandoned village of Imber, now fenced off, which can be seen at Easter and at Christmas, and which is actually an amazing sight. The village itself has pretty much gone apart from the church and the village pub, which is used as part of the military training. There has been a campaign for many years for people to get their land back, since they were booted out in the 2nd World War. Anyway, I’d suggest that for wildlife and all sorts of things, Salisbury Plains is a wonderful place to go to, and is actually quite accessible, particularly around the periphery.

There’s also, as you say, Porton Down, which is the Chemical Biological Weapons Centre. You’ve also got Boscombe Down, the military super-long runway, the RAF’s testing station, where the Bouncing Bomb, for example, was developed during the 2nd World War. There’s the Land Warfare Center at Wilton, just a couple of miles west of Salisbury, and underground nuclear weapons stores—something I discovered, although it is not supposed to be public knowledge, but certainly well-known to us—at various places dotted around there. Where the stone to build Salisbury Cathedral came from, stone was quarried leaving massive underground areas used to store nukes and various other highly-toxic stuff.

Anyway, Salisbury looks like a lovely tourist town with its beautiful cathedral and spire, but actually everywhere you go there’s a military presence. Porton Down is only a ten-minute drive from Salisbury. I can remember when I was working in Salisbury there was a place called the Common Cold Research Center, which had just closed down in the early '90s, where experiments with various viruses were conducted. The positive aspect to it was that they were finding out about the common cold, but the Common Cold Research Center also had a very close link with Porton Down. In the 1950s and '60s, military personnel, many of whom were on obligatory National Service and so had little choice in the matter, were horrendously used as guinea pigs with the offer of an extra £10 a week. Back in 2000, there was an enquiry launched into the deaths of 45 servicemen from the Royal Marines and the Army mostly, who volunteered for Porton Down testing, told it was quite safe, all above board, and then died as a result.

JC: They tested sarin on them, didn’t they?

TG: They tested all sorts of things, and have yet to reveal all the things that were tested on them. I’ve spoken personally to one guy who was tested with others wearing one those protective chemical/biological suits and gas masks, but when the soldiers encountered some sort of substance that made them laugh uncontrollably, they all tore off their suits, leaving them exposed to any chemical or gas substance out there. They were simply guinea pigs, Julian, and what an appalling way to treat people. Then, in 2008, a paltry sum of, I think, three million pounds was issued as compensation. Actually, the BBC here in Bristol was quite influential in getting that into the public eye and getting the courts to take that whole business seriously. So, look, at the end of the day the question is: Can you trust Porton Down? The answer: No!

JC: No, I have no love for Porton Down, because I was brought up in Swanage on the South Coast, and, as listeners will know, Porton Down was involved in the spraying of live bacteria out on the coast there, out in the bay, and when I was a child I had frequent chest infections. Of course, I don’t know that there’s any connection there, but I do wonder if that is in fact connected to what they were doing.

TG: It could well be, couldn’t it (?) It’s also very interesting that there’s been hardly any reported mention of Porton Down being nearby, and being a potential source for this nerve agent, which, to me, is just laughable really; it is the most obvious potential reason. I actually spoke to a former army officer today, who, as part of his job as an army officer, worked at Porton Down, and he told me that they definitely had Novichok there.

JC: Really!

TG: The interesting thing about the story is that nerve agents kill people very, very quickly, efficiently and very effectively. They are extremely dangerous substances. Even contact with a tiny droplet of the stuff will kill you, which beggars the question as to why we’ve got three people that were not killed by this. I mean if the Russian State were behind this, and wanted to kill any of these people, they would be dead. So, something has gone wrong somewhere, or else the story doesn’t stack up.

JC: Did you pick up on the story of a medical professional who gave assistance to them, and who was not hurt in any way, but the policeman was? That doesn’t seem to add up at all. Did you come across that?

TG: It doesn’t make any sense, does it? One of the first things I heard from some colleagues in Salisbury was that they were extremely surprised that a Detective Sergeant was the first person on the scene. Normally, the first person on the scene would be a PC, and the Detective Sergeant would only get involved at a much later stage once an investigation had been launched, possibly once potential charges had been made and arrest warrants prepared, that sort of thing. He would certainly not have been the first person on the scene, so that’s immediately suspicious.

The other thing is the timing with the Russian election just a couple of weeks afterwards. Was the story designed to interfere with the Russian election? We’ve been making a lot of fuss about the Russians interfering in our elections without a lot of evidence, it has to be said, so maybe we’re accusing them of what we’re doing through operations like this. You started asking about the whole Pablo Miller/Jonathan Steele/Orbis Intelligence business, and that does definitely look suspicious. I would suggest that Sergei Skripal would have a grudge against Russia and the Russians, having taken the Queen’s shilling and betrayed his country and been ridiculed by his country, even though he was involved in a spy swap and wasn’t very well-respected there. So he could be quite willing to take part in any psychological operation against Russia. Certainly, that fits potentially with the idea that he’s working with this private company, basically an M!6 front it seems, and Jonathan Steele who wrote the Trump dossier. I’ve even had someone suggest to me that maybe Trump did it ...

JC: [Laughter]

TG: … as a way to get back at Jonathan Steele for writing the document. You know, MI6 quite clearly has its finger prints all over this, and we know MI6 are designed to kill, designed to lie; that’s what they do. The only trouble is that they seem to be using some of their MI6 tactics—their James Bond techniques—against the British public, against British politicians (they're the target for this), and against British lawmakers—against all officials in Britain. This is, I think, a way to bend their minds to hate Russia more, because there are so many holes in this story. It’s a Rush-to-Judgement, which, to me, in a way is the biggest hole of all. “We’ve decided who did it, we’ve decided what happened, we’ve decided you did it, and we’ve decided why”, literally only twelve hours after it happened. Look, no sensible person can make an actual decision, and a whole lot of diplomatic expulsions based on that decision, when you haven’t even got the facts and the evidence together. This is definitely a Rush-to-Judgement, and I think one of the best commentators on it has been the former Uzbekistan Ambassador, Craig Murray.

JC: Absolutely, very interesting.

TG: Craig Murray has pointed out how this Novichok nerve agent is "of a type developed by Russia". Well, that doesn’t mean anything, and, as we’ve just heard, I think there are something like thirteen countries, including South Africa, that have developed this stuff and have phials of it. Then we hear stories about a woman with a red suitcase disappearing up an alleyway just as the couple was discovered.

JC: Let’s go back to that "of a type developed by Russia". That was quite an important point that Craig Murray was making, that this was a sort of compromise phrase that he says Porton Down agreed to, because they couldn’t actually pin this on Russia, but they were sort of arm-twisted into accepting the phrase that now has been repeated all over the place. I mean, everywhere you listen that is the phrase that is coming out.

TG: Well, it may even be true that Russia developed this.

JC: Absolutely.

TG: But that does not mean that it was actually administered by them. Actually, the most obvious source for this is ten minutes down the road, Julian.

JC: Yes, I wasn’t saying that it’s necessarily not true. Iwas saying—and I think this is what Craig Murray was implying—that this phrase is being used as a way of saying: “Only Russia could do it”. It doesn’t mean that, but that’s the way it’s being employed as a phrase.

TG: Yes, that’s right; it’s psychological, isn’t it? There are one or two appalling pieces in the media coverage on this whole thing such as that deployed against Jeremy Corbyn who simply said—Let’s just abide by international regulations, by the rule of law, let’s just do this by the book—with the result that a picture of him appears on Newsnight using an image of him standing in front of the Kremlin wearing a very Soviet-style cap that has been photo-shopped. It’s really an attempt to fit him up as a Russian agent. Now, this is exactly what the Establishment did to Harold Wilson in the 1970s, and this is what they do to people who are actually trying to abide by the law and do what ordinary British people want.

JC: I was very interested by what someone said—a couple of years ago now, I think, by somebody high up in the military—that if Jeremy Corbyn ever comes to power, the military would rebel against that.

TG: Well, they’re saying he wouldn’t pass vetting as well.

JC: Right, right. In connection with this, I’m wondering if you think what happened a few weeks ago, when there was this business of Jeremy Corbyn having had connections with a Czech communist spy—whether that is actually part of the operation that’s going on here. Because there’s been a link back to that in the news, hasn’t there? “Ah look, you can see there are these connections to the Cold War and communism back in those days. It’s all connected. Look, he won’t blame Russia”, etc.

TG: Yes, of course, and I think that what’s going on here [has to do with] military psychological warfare units. The most obvious one is the place that trains psychological warfare officers in Chicksands in Bedfordshire. But now we’ve got another, announced about three or four years ago, called Brigade 7/7. (One can’t help but wonder if it was so-called after the 7/7 bombings. Who knows? It’s the sort of in-joke they like.)

We’ve been told #YuliaSkripal has been discharged from hospital and taken by British authorities to a ‘secure location’. If she believed #Russia was behind her poisoning a press conference would surely have been arranged. It seems the UK govt does not want us to hear her account.

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

When the initial story of poisoning at the bench in The Maltings broke, the media also covered the collapse of the Police Officer Nick Bailey at the scene.

Quote:

OUR LAD'S BEATING VLAD Hero cop who helped poisoned Russian spy ‘up and chatting’ after coma as cops confirm 21 people are being treated
The brave cop rushed to the aid of former double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and Yulia, 33, after they were found slumped unconscious on a shopping centre bench in Salisbury, Wilts
Sergeant Nick Bailey rushed to the aid of the former double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and Yulia, 33, after they were found slumped unconscious on a shopping centre bench in Salisbury, Wilts.
All three were rushed to hospital where they slipped into a coma. Wiltshire Police confirmed tonight a total of 21 people are still being treated after the nerve agent was unleashed in Salisbury city centre on Sunday.
First cop on the scene, Sergeant Bailey - who joined Wiltshire Police in 2002 - remains seriously ill, but is stable and conscious after giving CPR to Sergei and Yulia. The Russian pair are fighting for life.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5759829/nick-bailey-hero-police-poison-a ttack-salisbury/

Recently the story had changed to the poisoning having occurred four hours earlier via a gel applied go their front door handle. But I immediately wondered, how did Nick Bailey get poisoned immediately at the bench, since he had not been to their house?

Well, guess what, today the story in the Daily Mail has changed to cover this discrepancy - it states that he was poisoned at their house later in the day!

Quote:

EXCLUSIVE: Paving slabs removed from Skripal home amid concerns the attacker may have SPILLED the poison while daubing door handle
The front door has already been removed and now the path is being tested
Police fear the nerve agent may have fallen onto the path while it was applied
It comes as Yulia Skripal is released from hospital and her father is getting better
The investigation continues at the house and other sites that they visited
Police investigators have not released any updates about the forensic tests

By JAMES FIELDING FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 14:22, 11 April 2018 | UPDATED: 00:08, 12 April 2018

Sergei Skripal's front path has been dug up and is being forensically examined amid fears that the would-be assassins spilled traces of the poison as it was daubed on the door handle, MailOnline has learnt.

A picture taken from above shows that the front garden of the former Russian double agent's home in Salisbury has been dug up and covered with plywood which has also been used to seal the entrance to the house.

According to a source close to the investigation, up to 10 paving stones outside were painstakingly removed to check for traces of the nerve agent Novichok.

Police fear the person or people responsible for poisoning Skripal and his daughter Yulia may have left a minuscule amount of the toxic substance on the path before they made their escape.

The front door to the property, which was found to have the greatest concentration of Novichok, has already been removed and is being tested.

The source told MailOnline: 'Due to the seriousness of the operation, nothing is being left to chance.

'The front door has been taken off and checked and now the focus is on whether those who administered the nerve agent spilled any on the garden path in their haste to get away.

'A small number of stones by the front lawn have been taken up and sent to the Government's research laboratory in nearby Porton Down for closer analysis.

'The concerns for the police are twofold. One is the possibility of the slabs being contaminated and the other is the recovery of vital forensic evidence.

'The reason the path has been removed and taken to Porton Down is so the paving stones can be examined in laboratory conditions and later destroyed safely.'

Skripal, 66, remains in intensive care at Salisbury District Hospital although he is no longer in a critical condition.

Medical director Dr Christine Blanshard said he has made 'good progress', adding: 'Although he's recovering more slowly than Yulia we hope he too will be able to leave hospital in due course.'

His 33-year-old daughter was discharged from hospital on Monday and is now under a 24-hour police guard at a secure location.

In a statement, she said: 'I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to say my strength is growing daily. I am grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that I have received.

'I have many people to thank for my recovery and would especially like to mention the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated. Further than that, I would like to thank the staff at Salisbury District Hospital for their care and professionalism.

'I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you'll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence.'

The father and daughter were found slumped on a bench outside the Maltings shopping centre in the centre of Salisbury at 4.15pm on March 4 after visiting a pub and having lunch at Zizzi.

Wiltshire Police Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey was struck down by the nerve agent when he attended the Skripal home a few hours later.

The officer was also critically ill at one point but is now recovering at home.

Skripal's detached home in Salisbury is one of several sites across the cathedral city that remain cordoned off by police.

A section of the Maltings shopping centre close to The Mill pub and Italian restaurant Zizzi is still sealed off as is the London Road Cemetery, where Skripal's wife Luidmila and son Alexandr are buried.

The clean-up operation will take several months as forensic officers have to painstakingly swab every surface area in those areas suspected of being contaminated before the public can be allowed back in.

It was the Kremlin's latest denial that the pair were targeted with a Novichok nerve agent developed by the Soviet military

By Chris Kitching 16:04, 14 APR 2018

Russia claims the substance used to poison double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia was an agent called BZ that has been used by Nato states including the UK and US.

It was the Kremlin's latest denial that the pair were targeted with a Novichok nerve agent developed by the Soviet military and latest attempt to discredit the findings of independent chemical weapons experts.

Scientists from the Nobel Prize-winning OPCW found that "high purity" Novichok was used in the poisoning, backing the UK.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claims a Swiss lab found that a BZ agent was used against the Skripals.

He said the toxin was never produced in Russia, but was "in service" in the UK, US and other Nato states, state media reported.

Sergei Skripal was jailed in Russia for betraying fellow spies (Image: AFP)
Yulia Skripal has been released from hospital in Salisbury (Image: REUTERS)

Russia has denied that it was involved in the poisoning and that a Soviet military-grade nerve agent was used in the attempted murder of the Skripals.

It has repeatedly used state media to accuse the UK of responsibility and deny Kremlin involvement.

The father and daughter were critically ill when they were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury city centre in Wiltshire on March 4.

Ms Skripal, 33, has been released from hospital while Mr Skripal, 66, remains in hospital, but is no longer in a critical condition.

Mr Lavrov claims the Skripals were poisoned with a toxin known as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ, rejecting the findings of chemical weapons experts.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found that "high purity" Novichok was used in the attempted murder.

It said the nerve agent was detected in environmental samples collected in Salisbury and in blood samples taken from the Skripals and Det Sgt Nick Bailey, a Wiltshire Police officer who fell seriously ill while working on the case.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the findings backed the UK's position that Russia carried out the attack on UK soil.

He said: "There can be no doubt what was used and there remains no alternative explanation about who was responsible - only Russia has the means, motive and record."

The largest concentration of the nerve agent has been found at the front door of Mr Skripal's home in Salisbury, the UK has said.

Russia has challenged claims that it was involved, telling the UK to provide proof. It has also sought access to Ms Skripal, who was reportedly in a secure location after being discharged from hospital.

Mr Skripal was a Russian military intelligence colonel who was jailed in Russia in 2006 after he became a double agent and provided secrets to the West.

Mr Skripal was pardoned in 2010 and released as part of a Cold War-style spy swap. He was granted refuge in the UK, where he settled in Salisbury.

It was claimed this week that Russia had been spying on Mr Skripal and his daughter for at least five years.

2 MINUTES AGOJulliCane
Such a fake..no, all this is a US' and its puppets' plan.. Skripals case and Syria. What fake-news would be next? Who's the next victim of poison to blame Russia in it?
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38 MINUTES AGOIanSlaney
If Russia didn't have anything to hide, why did they veto the UN resolution to invesigate the poisonig?
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20 MINUTES AGOJasmine01Robert0D
Hi Ian, I think the UN resolution you’re referring to is the one pertaining to Syria. Please correct me of I’m wrong on this. But with regard to Syria, there were three proposals submitted at the UNSC. All of them requested an investigation by the OPCW, but differed on the OPCW’s authority to assign blame. One proposal was submitted by the US, and vetoed by Russia. A second was submitted by Russia and vetoed by the US and it’s allies, and a third was drafted by Sweden and submitted on its behalf by Russia. Sweden’s proposal was the compromise proposal and this was vetoed by the US. It’s not very well covered in the press.
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8 MINUTES AGOJulliCane
if UK has nothing to hide, why didn't they investigated this case with russian specialists? And why Skripals are hidden from the world? May be there were not any poison?
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1 HOUR AGOKcufyam
Lies again from the Mirror. The OPCW did not say it was Novachok and the Swiss laboratory was asked to carry out the analysis by the OPCW.

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